Hi everyone,

I suppose most of us are heading back to the normality of everyday life after that sojourn we had at Manning Point a few weeks ago.  Hopefully we have dried out all our gear and ourselves by now, otherwise things would be a bit smelly!!

As I promised, I will provide some "unauthorised commentary" on the Nationals in the next post.  Will it be controversial?  Hopefully not really!  Will it be a bit gossipy?  Perhaps a little bit!  In addition to this post, Martin Pryor has promised me that he will pen a "View From the Rear"  (there's lots I could say to that, but I will leave it well alone!).  So Martin, I know you have been at the Cadet Nationals, but time to get this done now before school starts!!

Before going in to the report, some other quick things to mention:

• Photos, photos, photos!!  There were plenty taken, largely of boats drifting around in not a lot of wind.  However, these will find their way to the website when Bob T gets the opportunity to load them in.  Special thanks to Tony Potter (Tom Potter's Dad - Carbon Neutral), Annetter Trotter (Brian Mansfield's wife - Flame Boy), Dave Hardaker, who was forced to convert from sailor to photographer (more of that below), and Sarah Morton (daughter of Rob and Sian - Wizard of Oz).  I will toss in a couple of photos at the end of this post to whet your appetite.
• Manning River Marathon weekend.  I asked Mr Roche for a quick report.  I could sense his frustration in the response.  The Saturday race at Manning Point did not rate a mention, and Greg commented that the Sunday race was an agonising 3.5 hour drifter, and the lead MG was a 30-year-old double-luffer!  Not impressed!!
• Although Toronto does not recommence racing until 30 January, Saturday on Lake Macquarie was a very active day.  The Etchells had their final race in their Nationals Series, the local yacht clubs had their Saturday racing, and in amongst all the large hardware was a small lone boat, with a diminutive lone sailor - an MG!  I got out my binoculars, and there it was powering up into Belmont Bay, all the way from Toronto, in a solid nor-easter, and who was it, one Greg Roche (as he explained to me later he needed to blow out the cobwebs after a few frustrating weeks)!  Well, he set the kite behind a significantly larger Sport Boat with a big asymmetric, and they took off.  Who was faster?  Yep, Final Phase overtook the Sport Boat to windward and continued to fly away as they broad-reached down into Toronto.  It brought tears of joy to my eyes!!
• Speaking of the Etchells, on the Friday I took the time off work to follow the Etchells around....well, follow John Bertrand around.  I had my son and a couple of his mates in the tinnie with me, and I tried to explain the significance of Bertrand to them.  They were more concerned that I seemed to be stalking him and his boat.  I actually convinced my wife and a friend to come out with me and follow Bertrand around the course in the second race of the day, in which he duly blew the fleet apart and won by an unusually large margin at that level of sailing in that class.  We even got a nod of acknowledgement from the Great One and his crew as they cruised downhill comfortably ahead of their nearest rivals.  He did win the title, and by a good margin.  However, although Etchells may offer challenging and close fleet racing, as well technical tuning requirements, it all seemed a little pedestrian doing continual windward / leewards, compared to flying along, crew on wire, up on the plane (as you do an MG)!  Does anyone agree with me?

So, next post will be the unauthorised report.....