Sail Down Under

HI!
We are back temporarily from the Sail Downunder series which included Sail Brisbane, Sail Sydney and Sail Melbourne. We departed for Sail Brisbane on the 20th of November driving up the coast to Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. We set up camp at the club with some team mates from NSW, the Crawford Family and settled in for the next 10 days of our very first regatta together. We had a few days of training before the regatta began and a bit of time to set up the boat properly. The day before Day 1 the NSW team - Conways, Karl, Crawfords, Mikki and myself - we went to a buffet all you can eat lunch and then went to see a movie and rest up for the next day. The conditions we mainly choppy water and WINDY, even a little bit scary at times. The very last race was abandoned because it was a bit too much wind. Lots of good capsizes, one by us. Luckily most of the boats had a juice bottle at the top of the mast so the capsizes were not as bad as the could have been and it also saved a few bent masts. I got to see some of my family that had recently moved up to Queensland and had dinner with them at a Thai restaurant on the last night, it was a good chance to get away from the Club and the tent and listening to my cousins sailing school adventures of capsizing! Sail Brisbane was a fun regatta a good way to get into the routine for the following regattas. We then drove in convoy back the Maclean to stay overnight at Gabe's place to break the drive up. Many car cards were developed to keeps us all occupied and even rounds of I Spy were being held between the cars.
back in sydney for two days of training put together by Yachting Australia to get us ready for Sail Sydney. Thanks to my brother Oscar for towing 10 boat dolly's from middle harbour to woolahra so they everyone could just sail their boats over rather than having to pack it all up for a 20mins car trip.
Sail Sydney- back on our own water which made it a bit more comfortable. A good fleet of eighteen 470's made for some close competetive racing, and it was nice having a few more girls around. We started off well with an 11th which was a pretty good feeling! We had tofocus on our starts a little more and became a bit more confident by the end of the 4 days. on Day 4 we were delayed for a few hours as there was not a lot of wind and the boats that race before us were still waiting to leave the shore.
2 days later we left for Sail Melbourne which was being held at Sandringham Yacht Club on Port Phillip Bay. Again we drove in convoy playing the car games from our frist Road trip from Sail Brisbane. 2 more days of training were planned to get used to different conditions again and to get used to the out of control weather! Melbourne was now referred to as Mexico! Sail Brisbane was pretty different to the rest of the regattas. There were more boats, more on water Jury's, the medal race, GPS tracking devices on the marks and boat, the Media and it was a Grade 1 ISAF regatta. The first day girls and boys raced seprately but the two fleets were combined after this to make one big fleet which made it tricky but gave good experience for racing in a bigger fleet. Our racing at this regatta was much better than the previous regattas. We changed a few roles on the boat and everthing ran smoother. Our starts improved and we made it to the top mark a few times in the top ten. The last day was the Medal race for the top 10 female and male boats in the fleet. GPS trackers were attatched to our boat and we raced right out the front of the club for all the spectators to watch. It was really awesome to have everyone watching. We had never experienced anything like that before and it was the first Medal race we'd ever done! Hopefully we will make it into the Medal Race next year too!
After the race we headed in to pack up and go to the presentation. Mikki and I recieved a trophy for 3rd Women Overall in the DownUnder Series. We we very proud as all our training and hard work over the year had paid off and we were rewarded. Shame they only gave us one trophy to share! We headed off for Pizza that night with the road trip gang and filled up our belly's. The next day we decided to go shopping while the boys went rock climbing, and only stopped when we ran out of money.
Our last night at the Taylors house, where we stayed for the entire regatta, we cooked up a huge dinner, it nearly didnt fit in the saucepan, and dessert to say Thanks. Then we left in the morning to drive around the other side of port phillip bay to Sorrento for 2 days of training to prepare for Nationals which we will be leaving for on thwe 2nd of January!

Successful Fundraiser!

Hi!
Thanks to everyone that came to the fundraiser and shared a great night. We started off with an introduction and the entrees, followed by the first round of trivia. We had 6 tables and each chose their team names: Sail of the Century, Making Waves, Mikky's Fan Club, Zach's Gang, Shame-o-puss and the Squid,and the Flippy Floppies. Round 1 was one by Shame-O-Puss and the Squid on 9.5 points. Then out came the main meal with Sizzling mongolian beef, fried rice, honey chicken, and sweet & sour pork. The Mongolian was definately the favourite! Round 2 got underway and was taken out by the Flippy Floppies on 8.5 points, and this team won overall despite a small discrepency in the points which favoured them to win. Throughtout the night loads of raffle tickets were sold by Elyse, there was heaps of prizes. We asked our Coach Erik to draw out the first ticket to which he pulled out his own name! This was pretty funny. Also going on in the middle of the room was a Coin Toss game run by Victor Lewandowski. the aim was to throw your coin as close to the bottle as possible to win. We had two bottles, the first one won by Mikky's 11 year old sister, Dora, and the second won by Patrick. In the silent Auction we had a few bids also contributing to our funds raised on the night.
Thank you to everyone that came, to Anne, Nova, Lynne and Elyse who helped organise the night, to Victor for running the Coin Toss, to Fountain Court Restaurant for the great food and hospitality, to Gaye who made the cards and Pete's mum who donated her paintings for the raffle, to all the Sponsors that donated various prizes and money. Galileo Personal Training, EDUPOV, Synergy, Creative Vision, Dr Ken Roper, SkiffSail, and Connels Point Vet.
Money Raised on this night calculated to $1000!

Thank you!

Trivia Night

Hi,

One week to go until the Trivia night!
It looks like a good turn out with approximately 70 people attending. We are thankful to have been donated some items from Galileo Personal Training, SkiffSail and Creative Vision. The trivia night should be lots of fun and a good chance to catch up with everyone, good food and good music!
It is being held at
Fountain Court Chinese Restaurant
217 Belgrave Esplanade Sylvania Waters (at the round about near Doltone House)

Hope to see you all there!

Update

Hi, just giving an update on whats been happening the last month. Been doing heaps of boat work, making sure eerything is running smootly on our boat and making sure nothing is about to break, thanks to those that helped out. We have been back to see Clare at the gym for an updated prgram, heavier weights. The Fundraiser Trivia night has been changed to the 16th October because the original date coincided with the October Long weekend and many people are away.
Not long until we go away to all the regattas, Sail Brisbane coming up at the end of November.
Our sailing is still always improving, that been said we always have room for improvement. We are reading up on tactics and rules to help us along. Myself and Mikky are getting our Level one Sailing Instructor Qualifications next week so then we can get some work coaching. Last weekend we were training between North and South head on the Harbour, not much wind, but while we were waiting we came across a pod of dolphins! Its always so awesome to see dolphins when we are sialing. We will have some more photos up soon. More updates on Trivia Night to come soon!

Aurora

Im On A boat

This footage was filmed using our EDUPOV sunglasses!!!

Sunday Sailing

Havent posted in a while, been very busy with training, uni and work! The 470's that went to Europe have been and gone again off to Denmark for the World Championships, so Goodluck to all of them!. While they were here we had 2 regatta weekends. It was Good to have everyone back for some close racing. It was also good to see improvement of the boats who had stayed in Australia training through winter and the level of the fleet has improved. This made for some very close racing.
Aurora and Mickey had some great races and were happy with their progress. after catching up on a lot of boat work, replacing ropes, fixing the boom, replacing the gasket and putting up some better quality sails the girls were pretty happy and suprised to be racing towards the front end of the fleet. They were really happy to see their progress in relation to the rest of the fleet to when they started sailing the 470 in March.

This weekend we sailed the Sunday and we have some footage of us sailing from our Point Of View glasses from our Sponsor EDUPOV
Take a look at the footage!

Photos

hey! We finally have some photos, so take a look. They are from training today - not much wind.

On the sponsorship trail!

The White Chocolate support team has been busy approaching small businesses for donations to raffle at the fundraising dinner! The businesses of South Hurstville are to be commended for getting behind their local patrons and I hope we can return the favour with some great advertising and goodwill, and maybe even some new customers. In the next few days we will post about each sponsor from South Hurstville and thank them individually, but right now I would like to thank them all for being so approachable and supportive generally!

We have White Chocolate Sailing T-shirts for sale for $20 each - they are a beautiful quality 100% white cotton Fair Trade t-shirt, complete with a logo of three small blue sailing boats! You can see the logo in a photo on one of the previous posts in this blog! Get in touch with Aurora on Facebook or Michal if you want one!

More soon!

Update form Aurora and Mic

Hey everyone!
Thanks for all the support we have been receiving, it pretty good to know that we have so many people behind us.
Havent sailed this week because of exams and assessments and sickness. But we have still been going up to the gym at Brookvale - Galileo Personal Training Studio. We have been strength and fitness training for the last 5 months and we have noticed our improvements. We have recently been training up there twice a week on a program specifically made for each of us by Clare Hozack, as well as some cardio fitness and hillsprints. Next week we have an appointment with Clare to see our progress!
Hopefully is Mic is feeling better we will get out on the water on Sunday and get some photos of us sailing!

Date for Dinner - Confirmed

Saturday 3rd of October at 7pm. Tickets are $25 each for a Chinese banquet and entertainment! Should be fun - we need 11 tables of 10 people on each table!

The Chocolate Report!

At least 10 more boxes of chocolates have been sold! Everyone is helping out by selling and buying chocolates to get Aurora and Michal to their destination! TWO boxes were sold to the Hurstville Seniors Computing Club, thanks to Rora's Cybernana Maria! Thank you for your support Hurstville Seniors!

There has also been support on the chocolate buying front from Aurora's mums workplace at Meadowbank where chocolates vanish at 3.00pm (although it is well known that Auroras mum would have bought and eaten plenty all by herself) other two boxes sold through a friend of Rora's dad (also rumoured to like chocolate!) and Michal sold a couple of boxes at the sailing club and her Mum sold another two! Rora herself has sold a couple of boxes while attending her course at the Australian Catholic University.

The fundraising thermometer is slowly rising and there is plenty of chocolate to come yet!

New Sponsor!

Thank you Dr Ken Roper for supporting Michal and Aurora. Your donation of $100 is most appreciated.
Dr Ken Roper
MBBS, BSc (Med), FRANZCOG
Dr Roper is a specialist Obstetrician and Gynaecologist with appointments at St George Private and Kareena Private Hospitals. His areas of interest include general gynaecology, laparoscopic surgery and obstetrics.

Practice Locations
32/20-24 Gibbs Street
MIRANDA 2228

Contact Details
Phone : 9524 2129
Fax : 9540 4917

Fundraising Report

The first 15 boxes of Fundraising chocolates have been sold. the chocolate sales have gone really well and we will keep selling them to get ourselves to Europe. Tickets to the Fundraiser Dinner Night have been drafted and the date for has been set for the 26th September. We have been recieving interests from various local businesses who want to get behind us as sponsors.
Have a look at the Fundraising Thermometer on the side of this page - watch our funds growing.

Training

Michal and Aurora have started off the week with some good training. Saturday was blowing strongly again with big swell. There was actually people surfing in the harbour the swell was so big. The girls managed to sail without a capsize much to their own suprise! Sunday was much lighter however the swell was still big. This made for tricky conditions to keep the boat as stable as possible through the waves without it effecting the sails. After training on Sunday the girls got into their fitness doing hill sprints.
Cadbury delivered more boxes of chocolates on Monday. The fundraising is going very well. Thanks to all those who supported us by buying chocolate and to those who helped us out by selling boxes for us!
Mickey and Aurora had training this morning too, leaving the beach at 6am. There was not much wind but we still got in a good training session. Aurora's brother, Sam - 18ft Skiff Sailor, came to watch their training and gave them good feebdback on their training as well as some valuable ideas. Then up to the gym for weight training!

EDUPOV to sponsor White Chocolate!

An amazing sponsorship from the fellows who have brought camera glasses to training and assessment - EDUPOV {Thats short for "educational point of view"}!



We are actually being sponsored with a pair of $600 camera glasses which record video and audio from the point of view of the wearer - you can see how exciting this is on a sailing boat. Been done before with webcam with amazing results, now I cant wait to see the video of the skipper and crew while sailing! Will have to keep the sailors language in check though because it will all be picked up on the audio!

Here they are below, very cool and slick - you will definitely be seeing some on water action from Aurora and Mickey on White Chocolate in the next few weeks!


Contact details and online store can be found at http://www.edupov.com/. Thank you EDUPOV!

Synergy Business Centre Miranda - our first sponsor!

Susan Parris, Synergy Business Centre Miranda, didnt hesitate when asked for sponsorship dollars for White Chocolate. Thank you so much! Ring Susan to talk about your business needs - I promise you great advice, phone 8543 3800.








The completely furnished, professionally staffed and equipped serviced office suites at Mirandacater to all business needs and requirements on an immediately available basis.

Sailing at Middle Harbour

The girls have been sailing and training at Middle Harbour Yacht Club for the past 3 months. They train with a fleet of 10 boats 3-5 days a week. The girls and the training fleet are lucky to have 4 great coaches. Jenny Armstrong (470 Gold Medalist 2000 Olympics), Erik Stibbe (Head of Sailing at NSW Institute of Sport), Victor Kovalenko (Australian Olympic 470 Coach) and Larry Cargil (29er Youth Worlds Coach).
Some of the fleet are now on their way to Europe to compete in International Regattas but the remainder of the fleet will be training until they return in July.

5 boats were training this weekend, with Saturday really blowing some heavy winds, only 3 boats went out. The girls took their chances and went out with a Coach boat behind them. "We had a few capsizes but we felt like we had improved heaps, we know what we have to work on."
Sunday was much calmer, although the breeze was all over the place. the conditions were frustrating for a few of the boats but they managed to get 5 short races in.

Fundraising

We have begun our fundraising!

We are selling our boxes of Cadbury Chocolates and are planning a Trivia/Dinner night for 100 people at a local restaurant in Sylvania in September.
We are seeking any businesses to make a donation for some advertisment at our Trivia/Dinner Night.

The girls have named their boat

Michal and Aurora have chosen the name for their boat. "White Chocolate". And you wonder how this has anything to do with sailing?

The girls are fundraising to make it possible for themselves to sail in the international regattas in Europe next year, to represent Australia and gain a world ranking. They have ordered boxes of fundraising chocolates from Cadbury and they will be getting to Europe mainly on their chocolate fund!
The girls love their sailing and their chocolate and the most appropriate name to them with all their fundraising was White Chocolate.