I rephrased the first sentence because I struggled with the phrase ‘public servant’ in the context of the response we received to our request for some improvements to the shoreline at Jackadder.

The background to this story is that our colleagues at Jackadder, Taskforce 72, (the guys with the RC warships) got in touch with Stirling City with a request to remove some rocks and tree roots from the bank of the lake where we all launch our boats. Taskforce 72 are concerned that a sailor will trip and fall while carrying their boats down to the water, as some members are getting on in years and some of the models they launch are cumbersome and heavy (sound familiar?). Their President, Bob, got in touch with me as a courtesy and invited me to attend the lakeside meeting today as additional support. Hopes were high for a simple and mutually agreed solution – a little bit of manual labour, a bit of excavation and chopping and some smoothing – all done.

But apparently ratty old trees are more important than  radio sailors when it comes to health and welfare. The main concern put forward by the council employees was that, if the recalcitrant rocks and roots were tidied up and cleared away, the tree might fall over. Apparently the one that fell over last year down in the southwest corner of the lake did so after it was overpruned, so they have no plan to repeat the experience. The possibility that a sailor might fall over and do themselves an (avoidable) injury wasn’t rated as highly as protection of the trees, if it was rated at all. Perhaps we should have suggested that an injured sailor might sue the council, especially now that the hazard has been pointed out (and photographed by them) but they are essentially choosing to do nothing about it.

Apparently they will consider a load of sand being applied for smoothing purposes but only as a temporary measure, and definitely no roots are to be cut nor any entwined rocks removed.

So sailors, whether you’re carrying a battleship, an A Class or a DF 95, take care when you’re launching your boat, or it might end in tears. Hopefully not yours.

Elsewhere on the public service front, our club’s approach to DBCA/DWER/DPIRD for permission to sail some IOMs in the river as a trial of the chosen spot continues – today we received a new response in the chain, just so we know that the responsible person in one of the aforementioned departments is now back from leave and is ready to take on consideration of our request. It’s not a yes but it’s not a no either and it comes four weeks after we started the process.

And our request to sail at South Perth is being turned into a Licensing Agreement as we speak, but the City is unable to tell us when it will be ready for us to see. So we won’t be sailing at South Perth this weekend … eight weeks after we started that process.

We will be sailing at Jackadder this weekend, so mind your step. Better still, get someone else to launch your boat. J

Thursday 15 October 2020: IOM and DF 95 Club Racing, at Jackadder Lake, from 2.00 pm. Weather: Partly Cloudy, Max 24, Winds southeasterly 15 to 25 km/h turning south to southwesterly 20 to 30 km/h in the late morning and early afternoon then becoming south to southeasterly and light in the late evening. (Bring B rigs – today the Gentlemen found it blowing up a bit after a slow start.) (DF boats can probably get by on A rigs, having superior sail-carrying capacity.)

Saturday 17 October 2020: IOM and DF 95 Club Racing, at Jackadder Lake, from 2.00 pm. Weather: Sunny, Max 26, Winds east to southeasterly 15 to 20 km/h tending south to southeasterly 15 to 25 km/h during the day then becoming light during the evening.

Enough from me, other than to congratulate Glenn Dawson on his convincing win in the 10R State Championships last Sunday at Champion Lakes.

Cheers
Bruce