Merry Christmas Top Hatters

[Miker]

All the very best to you all from Gabi and myself. We hope there is something special under the tree for you after the big fella comes and that we'll be able to have another gathering of Top Hats in the early part of 2011!

Michael

[storm petrel]

Merry Christmas to all, from the crew of Storm Petrel.

We have had some exciting sailing over the past few days including a bit of a tangle up coming into the Little Box Head channel when a 35 knot gust sent us into an involuntary tack towards the rocks. Luckily the old diesel fired into life straight away and the crew managed to get the sails under control in time to prevent us ending up on the front page of the local rag. In the excitement of wrestling down the madly flapping, reefed main we managed to pop out and lose the top mainsail batten. Considering we ended up about 5m from the rocks in an onshore wind that was strong enough to continually blow spray in our faces from the wave tops, we thought this was a small price to pay. Amazingly, my 24yr old son, who had snuggled into the quarter berth after a big night, slept through the whole thing.

The next morning Maritime rang me and said my boat was on the emergency mooring in Pittwater! Knowing how hard it was to bring her into Brisbane Waters the day before I thought that had to have been a mistake (Or the thief was a hell of a night time sailer!). Needless to say, I was very relieved to find Stormy on her mooring when I raced over to check.

Happy Sailing,
Mark

[Shaun]

Merry Christmas to all,
That does sound exciting Mark!
Im also looking forward to any Regattas, or Top hat sailaways & sailing Blue Moon to them, the inboard diesel is now running well, & have also been busy replacing various pieces of timber onboard.
Cheers
Shaun