ISAF World Cup Sailing – Melbourne 2016

pc112465e — Rounding the mark and heading for home in the women’s 470 final

It was a beautiful early summer day and here I was a volunteer official on the finish line of the last round – the medal round – of the ISAF World Cup.

I know a little about race officiating but was a little nervous about such a big event as we waited at St Kilda Marina to pick of the other officials. My club the Hobsons Bay Yacht Club had provided our club boat to be the set the finish line and record the results.

Maria from Valencia (oh how I loved Spain) quickly assured us that we needed to just do as she said. Press the hooter when she said now, raise the flag when she said now etc.

She was a quiet woman but chatting away after fine tuning the reach angles and waiting for starts her experience was slowly revealed an on water official at two Olympics, Principal race offer for the TP52 series in Europe.

Great I just did what I was told, enjoy the racing and take some photos.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — 470 men’s start

From the boat we had a great view of the start and the final rounding mark leading to the finish.

We were officiating 5 races all deciding the series for that class.

There was the Men’s and Women 470 class.

The Finn a hard boat to sail for big strong blokes.

The women’s laser radial and men’s laser the boats of single handed skill.

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The last race the Men’s laser

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A tightly fought race,

with a fairy tale end.

pc112517e — Thumbs up as he gets the winners signal

With Pavlos Kontides winning his first ever international series gold medal, having won an Olympic Silver Medal and many other placings in a decade of senior sailing in the laser.

My home town – Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne is my home town

A large sprawling modern city

A beautiful city in many ways.

A CULTURAL CITY

With a strong sense of the Arts

Offering major exhibitions

Both inside and out of the galleries

A Sporting and Multicultural City

Melbourne is a great sporting city,

Hosting an Olympic Games, ,the home of the Australian Tennis Open, Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne Cup, the Boxing Day Cricket Test, the MCG and the birthplace of Australian Football.

But it is community level football that in many ways captures the multicultural nature of Melbourne. Where the locals teams include the players with heritage from every continent – migrants old and new and indigenous Australians all in the game.

And on the sidelines the Lebanese mothers wear their Hijabs in the home teams colours.

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Sometimes there is a special moment, a wonderful day , that makes one reflect on where you are, where you spend most of your time and the special things about it.

It was a early autumn day in Melbourne.

I had been waiting to find the time to go to the National Gallery to see the wonderfully curated exhibition of the works or Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei.

A free Saturday morning gave me the opportunity.

Then in the afternoon my son played footy in a team that embodies the multicultural spirit of Melbourne a team made up of local people whose heritage stemmed from Polynesia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and captain coached by an indigenous Australian.

As I stood at my sons game and ate a kebab wrapped in a European style bun, talking to the retired primary school teacher who had taught “80% of the kids” I reflected on how special my home town is.