The S&S34 Association AGM is to be held at FSC at 11am Sun 31st July - click here for the Notice of Meeting. The notice will also be mailed to all financial members. All welcome (non-members also, we are happy to sign you up for $25) and to stay for lunch afterwards.

The WA 2010-11 Offshore Presentation night was held at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club on 28th May. Proving that the S&S34 is still a very competitive racing boat as well as an outstanding cruiser, Blondie was awarded 1st place Div 2 YAH handicap in the Offshore Championship and 2nd on IRC. She was also a close runner up to the Whiting 32 Bad Habits for the overall Offshore trophy, out of a fleet of 58. The S&S34 beat all of Division 1, including some multi-million dollar custom built carbon fibre racers crewed by professionals. On top of the performance of Constellation earlier in the season, this again proves that the classic S&S34 design is a fantastic sea boat capable of mixing it with modern racing fleets which nowadays are mostly larger boats specifically designed for IRC racing.

Five S&S34's participated in the Easter "Cruise in Company", although unfavourable winds led to the decision to cruise down to Dawesville with an overnight stop in Warnbro, rather than north to Lancelin as originally planned. Although the weather on Sunday wasn't great and cut things short a little, a good time was had by all. More such events are planned as time and weather permits. We will get up the inside passage to Lancelin eventually!

For a full report and photos please click here

The 31st annual Commodore's race was held at Fremantle on 10/04/2011, under very pleasant conditions. It was a race where all the highly fancied competitors made navigational errors and came last, with the winner being a very well sailed (and correctly navigated!) Le Jag. Apologies for the delay in posting, for a full race report and results, please click here

Mike Finn sailing Constellation, has sailed a superb series to convincingly win IRC Red Division. Constellation had 7 first places from 10 starts in what is generally regarded as Western Australia's premier offshore regatta. For the full results, please click here

In case any of you thought that she couldn't compete against the big boys, Constellation also won the race week feeder race, the Iberia, outright on IRC. This is run by Royal Perth Yacht Club and is 110nm of ocean sailing down the unprotected coastline of Western Australia from Fremantle to Port Geographe Marina at Busselton. This year's race was started on 19th February, in conditions varying from a calm at the start through to a 30knot+ south easterly with 35knot+ gusts overnight. Most of the sailing was close hauled or a close reach into this, with a 3 hour run to the finish line. The fleet of 19 included the cream of offshore racing in Western Australia.

Constellation not only decisively won Div 2 by a margin of 37 minutes but also Div 1 by 4 minutes. This was a particularly good effort considering the quality of the Div 1 fleet, which included highly specialised racing boats such as the brand new Bakewell-White General Lee and the new Archambault 40 Aardvark, all designed and built (some on a no expense spared basis) to win IRC races. You can not only confidently cruise in your S&S34, you can also get out there ocean racing and beat the big boys in major races too!

The November edition of Australian Sailing features a 4 page article on the S&S34, written by Bernie Kaaks. It focuses on what makes this such a remarkable design, still competitive in racing (now under IRC) 40 years after the first boats were launched. It is an article featuring the new S&S34's rather than a simple boat test, and may be another good reason to buy a copy of the magazine.

Para-Olympic medallist and long distance record holder Jamie Dunross arrived home to Perth on 25th July 2010, completing his solo circumnavigation of Australia. Jamie is quadriplegic, and is sailing his new S&S34 "Spirit of Rockingham", which has been specially adapted for disabled sailing. He has set numerous long distance disabled records, and his circumnavigation was a truly remarkable achievement, a tough trip for anyone, let alone someone totally unable to use his legs and with only limited use of his arms. Please click HERE for a link to Jamie's website, for further information.