I've had a love affair with sailing for almost 50 years that began at Holdfast Bay Sea Scouts. I raced a Heron that I built with my Dad at Somerton, and then went on to crew in Gwen 12's and Sharpies.

 

When I moved to Loxton to take up my first teaching appointment, I had a brief dalliance sailing Quick Cats on Lake Bonney. In the mid 70's I built a Mossie in a group scheme and campaigned "Shadowfax" with mixed success over the next few seasons. I also raced at the RSAYS in the 80's on a Serendipity and then a Lexcen.

 

Since then I have cruised with friends in the Gulfs and Kangaroo Island, including a trip to Ceduna, various cruises along the east coast between Faser Island and Apollo Bay, New Caledonia and the most recent trip crewing a delivery from Port Stephens to Brisbane in July 2011.

 

My plan after working in various fields, from teaching, hospitality management, building a barn house to case management, was to retire and finish the protracted refit of my Hartley RORC 32 "Petra", then go sailing.

 

That all changed in March 2011 when I arrived at Alegayter Sails with a genoa to modify and discovered they were looking for someone to lend a hand. My initiation by fire was to learn how to fix the genoa and add the UV strips myself. I've been here ever since, picking up a few tricks of the trade from a great team - and loving every minute of it. Sadly, sailing has been restricted to weekends for the time being