Thought I pop along and say sorry for not being around as much recently. Been a little hectic here with one thing and another.
Dinghy Magazine has been in contact as they are doing a article on Peter Milne, so Marauders, Fireballs and of course the Javelin will be featured. They wanted some photos and selected a fine one from Southwold. Their choice honestly!
GBR562 is in the Paul Wright boat shed and will be having surgery over the winter to find some light wind boat speed which I used to have and for some reason have lost. Yes and some more sails Richard!
I've just got back from a simply teriffic Micro Magic European Championship in Gouda, Holland. limited to 51 competitors from 11 countries. The UK team of 5 won the team title much to the discust of some of the more established nations. Yours truly came a happy 18th which was a darn site better than my 36 from 40 back in March at the Duch MM Nationals. The organisation was superb and reminded me, for those who can remember, of the Uitdam Euros a few years back.
There were a couple of Javelins sitting on the hard standing at Gouda and I meant to have a look under the covers but I never got round to it.
Really strange mix of top European FD, 505, Finn, SB3, Mum36, Swan 60 sailors mixing with normal model saiors, all racing a little boat. No protests, no hassle just a great laugh especially the evening trip to Amsterdam with some very prim wide eyed Swiss, Swedes, Portuguese and Spanish guys.
Anyway just like to say I've not forgotton the Javelin and will be raring to go in the new year and looking forward to Travemunde, but to be honest next years Micro Magic Euros, which is on the Med at Rosas in Spain looks pretty exciting as well.
I've just tagged on the MM newsletter for your interest. Cheers
UK Micro Magic – Newsletter
Top news is that the UK won the team event at the recent European Championships, held in Holland. There were 51 competitors from a whopping 11 different countries taking part in the superbly organised event with some competitors even winning new boats in a raffle-style prizegiving giving everyone a chance of bagging one of the main prizes. Mike Weston came a fantastic 3rd overall, with John Tushingham, Peter Spence and Buzz Coleman also in the top ten and yours truly came a happy 18th.
Results and loads of photos can be seen on the International website at www.micromagic.info Plus a full report will appear in the Nov 30 issue of Yachts & Yachting so keep your eyes peeled for that too.
The 2008 European Championships will be in sunny Spainon the med so get practicing and start stockpiling that sunblock!
Those of you who have not visited the UK site for a while will have missed the fact that the first event of the winter series starts THIS WEEKEND at Southwold so get those batteries on charge!!! The full planned series is as follows… Southwold SC - Sunday 18th November 07 Swanley Park - Saturday 1st December 07 Southwold SC - Sunday 16th December 07 Swanley Park - Saturday 12th January 08 Southwold SC - Sunday 20th January 08 Swanley Park - Saturday 9th February 08 Southwold SC - Sunday 17th February 08 Swanley Park - Saturday 8th March 08 Southwold SC - Sunday 16th March 08
Racing to start at 11:00 and anyone is welcome to come and play.
Even if you don’t want to race or don’t have your own boat finished yet, come on down anyway and check out the boats and have a go. The UK MM Class has just reached its first birthday and what a year we’ve had…
The website at www.magicmicro.org has had a facelift and the backend rebuilt to cope with the increase in traffic. We now have 154 members on the site and the forum goes from strength to strength. The site has had over 139,000 hits in the last 12 months with the last three months seeing over 20,000 hits per month. Obviously most of these are not members (yet) but it does indicated the increasing level of interest in our little boat.
Demand for the MKII kit currently exceeds supply and we have a number of people waiting for the manufacturer to ship more kits out to the UK. In fact Microyachts and the Swanley Model Yacht Centre have both exceeded the German limits on non VAT exports for the year! This problem is being felt over Europe as more and more countries join in the Micro Magic phenomena. This year Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Australia and the USA have started to form fleets which now makes 15 countries recognised by the newly formed Micro Magic International Association or MMI.
In the New Year we plan to form an official Association in the UK and will aim to get full affiliation with the Model Yachting Associaiton. The aim is that the annual fee will be £10 per year. £6 of which will go to the MYA which will provide you with third-party insurance and full MYA access to all their resources. The remaining £4 will go into the UK Micro Magic Association and will be used to run the website and help with promotion and running events etc. We will look at waving the £6 if you are allready a MYA member via your current sailing Club. All these details are yet to be confirmed and I state these as an intent rather than policy at this time.
With this in mind a thread has been started on the UK forum for those wishing to be involved with the Association to put their name forward. www.magicmicro.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1855.last The other area of assistance we need is your ideas for possible venues for 2008 events, especially away from Southwold and Swanley. Plumber is working on a new venue in Essex, but ideally we need to spread further afield, so please let us know your thoughtsWhy not check out the members map to see other MM sailors near you and get together with your local MM skippers. www.magicmicro.org/e107_plugins/google_maps/google_maps.php Not on the map? Let me know and we’ll get that fixed.
To sum up, we’ve had a really successful 1st year and we hope to build on this and all indications show that we will. I hope you enjoy your Micro Magic, where ever you sail and it would be really great to see you at one or more of the forthcoming events.
gather a couple of masts went down and Gavin has a new light wind rudder
Sarissa is in the boat shed and we'll undertake the surgery in due course.
The Micro Magic kit is £110, a radio is £45 and batteries are about £15. So all up around £170.
It was blowing 28 to 34 knts today during a MM event here at Southwold, so we needed smaller rigs. Most just make their own cut down sails out of spinny material or even florists film but you can also buy panneled ones for about £30.
So, Javelins at the club in Reeuwijk (cause that's the name of the village you were ) One of those should be 487, the red boat that had it's first sail during the 2005 Nationals, you and Dick won so shamelessly It's owned by Sietske, some might remember the stunning blonde that was in Uitdam..... I didn't know there were more Javelins there, but we might drop in at the 2008 easter regatta's there and have a look.
Our 2008 calender is ready in a draught version. I will keep you all updated. It will include the North sea regatta again, and maybe a 4-day nationals the week before that. So plenty of reason to come over again!
Good to hear that your boat will be on the water next year, looking forward to seeing you at some events.
We are just in the process of finalising the programme for next year but at the moment the first couple of events are looking like this
April 12th and 13th TBC - Carsington May 24th and 25th Glossop - possible inlands June 14th and 15th Filey TBC Euros - Travemunder - End July dates to be confirmed Soulthwold - Nationals - 23, 24, 25 AUgust SGP - Sept Rutland - Oct
So, The Glossop-dam is repaired then? We have a hole in our programme (unintended silly joke ) so maybe, maybe I'll hop over to meet you there next year. I't's on my wish list.....
Arent, it would be great to see you at Glossop. The dam is repaired (heopfully) and we are now just waiting for a couple of weeks rain to fill it up again. Will you be bringing your boat over???
We are looking at attending the Toger Trophy at Rutland in February en mass and will put details on the website as soon as everything is confirmed. Its a bit tricky to get clubs to put on open events between Nove and April.
The Travemunde date is going to be a big issue as the 18th is two days before the end of the school term. The new ruling in Suffolk says we can't take the kids out early as well to compound the issue.
No program available as of yet, but the 18th is a Fri. It could well be that we'll get a similar schedule as last time, which means we would not be sailing before Monday 21st. Lets hope Jens manages to get us into the proper 1 week slot, rather than the 4 day one over the first weekend.
Hi all, as this thread was already "hijacked" by our MM enthusiasts, I thought I would give you a quick view on how the exiled honorary brits are doing over across the big pond. These pics were taken during a coaching weekend, on 29 Oct - 20-25 kts of breeze and still 15C....Mind you, same sort of wind today but -1 so unfortunately we had to bail out.... Hope everyone is doing well, cant wait to see you all in Travemunde Image: ../../e107_files/public/1196563049_8_FT137_gbr_7566_.jpg
Looks like an exciting sail,a small thing like a low temperature wouldn't deter some of our more enthusiastic sailors.Word has reached me that the Earls have yet again been taking part in the Chichester winter series and have been doing well.In order to keep close to the subject matter of the thread,I feel obliged to mention that the current issue of Yachts and Yachting features a two page report on the Micro Magic worlds.Probably a better form of sailing for the sailor who prefers to keep warm.
That's only if these worlds are held inside or at some warm beach resort. At our thursdayevening clubraces and the winter series (MM that is) you have to be aware not to die of hypothermia....
Still, I agree that a little cold shouldn't hold you back from sailing if you get the chance; pictures looking good, Olav
)
It's owned by Sietske, some might remember the stunning blonde that was in Uitdam.....
