Josh and Adrian's Blog

We would just like to say that the past 10 months haven't come easy. Time has flown, people have grown and seas have been conquered! Josh and I realise that a large part can be placed on the shoulders of the organising framework, but without the sponsorship to cover basic costs and general in kind assistance then the opportunity to complete the appeal may not have been possible.

From the bottom of my heart i thank you both as a group "Strait4devils" and also as an entity of sponsors and individuals alike. Each person that has been involved in Strait4devils though contributing in individual jobs has helped to make what has become a complete bonded framework of tasks to make the appeal possible.

To all the followers of Strait4devils, All the sailing people that had bets on weather we would make it or not, thankyou for your stirring and encouragement.

To Sam, Nick and the crew at Budget Car and Truck rental, Thankyou personally for standing by us from the start. Your involvement has been imperative to our success, your faith in the appeals success and belief that we would succeed gave us the ability to approach so much more with a renewed confidence in a time of economic downturn.

Keep an eye on the news for the announcement about catchup drinks at the METZ.

Talk soon.

After the past 4 days we have managed to clock up over 100 nautical miles in distance and also over 16 hours on the water.

On Saturday we set out from Ulverstone with our destination as the Table Cape classic off Wynyard at approximately 10am with a 2pm start. With only about 8 knots we headed north to gain the right angle for the journey along the coast. Stocked up on food and energy bars to try out we were set for our second trial run along the coast.

12 noon came flying by as we were cruising past Round hill wondering if we were ever going to make the start of the race as the breeze slowly but surely picked up as we approached Burnie a bit before 1pm. Finally we both got on the wing and really started making some serious progress towards the race course.

2pm and we were about 10 minutes short of making the start in a fading breeze as we made our way back towards the Tasmanian coast off Wynyard, the unfortunate side of the story was that despite an effort by mentor and sponsor of Strait4devils Steve Walker to delay the start, the message wasn't heard and the race started minutes before we made it to the line.

Despite our best efforts to slot into the race we decided that our efforts were in vain and decided after completing the first leg of the race that we weren't going fast enough and headed back out to sea to reset the Spinnaker and continue along the strait to get some more distance under our belt. Once we cleared Table Cape we had a visit from a local dolphin who surfed our bow wake for a while as we made our way past a big fishing boat on the way to Rocky Cape.

Stanley and the Nut were fast approaching and getting bigger by the minute, but a fading and shifting wind again made it impossible to get all the way and we decided to head our 10 nautical miles to shore to our destination of Boat Harbour Beach to end the day. Just on 6pm we made it to shore in fading light and surfed the Northeast waves into the beach.

A lot was achieved on Saturday and the distance and pure time on the water will undoubtedly help us to complete the challenge that awaits us.

Sunday 15^th and it was off to the Sail loft in Wynyard for some boat upgrades, with the assistance of Nick Richardson senior sail maker at the Steve Walker Sails Loft we prepared our boat to run its new reefing system in case of stronger conditions during the crossing. Afterwards we were off to Stanley to get a first hand look at the surrounds and identify some of the key local information that we may well need to know before our departure in March.

Keep an eye out for this weeks updates as the quiz night fast approaches!!

Strait4devils is hosting an awesome night of trivia fun for the whole family with the Quizzers of Oz.

There are some great prizes to be won and you could even get to meet Nevil the Devil!

venue: Hutchins school auditorium

date: Friday 20th of feb

time: 7.30pm - 10.30pm

cost: $15 per person.

table size: table of ten would be perfect!

For more information and BOOKINGS please call Annabel on 0410151852 or email akshort@utas.edu.au.

All money raised will be going in FULL to devil tumour research! So DO IT!

After a lot of preparation for the strait4devils crossing it looks like the stress has finally got to us during the final days of the world championships in Hobart.

After some ups and downs we managed to scrape into the top half of the fleet on the last day when we finally pulled something back to where we should have been throughout the regatta to finish with an 8th and a 16th coming out as 23rd overall.

Races 1 to 10 ended up 23,23,15,34,31,22,28,36,10,8,16: 153 points

Overall throughout the regatta the whole fleet was put to the test. With some of the best conditions for us postponed due to high winds we were left wanting the right breeze that didn’t seem to come till late on the second last day.

With everything working right and the boat flying along on a song race 8 we finally got into the top 10 where we had been aiming to reach for the regatta. To follow it up the next day race nine we romped home with an 8^th and the final race after a long capsize we survived the strong winds and waves to finish an impressive 16^th.

The final finish up was great and overall despite having to carry a few too many drops for the regatta we had to be pleased with our finish.

Now moving onto bigger and better things we are hoping to get a good finish in both the PDYC J Boag and Son Blockbuster and also the Bellerive Crown Series before we head off on the crossing of a lifetime in aid of our famous Tassie icon

The strait4devils team finally came to the party in the 5th race of the series on Sunday, finishing in 10^th position. Once the sea breeze arrived, the boys flew around the course coming home with a 5^th in the 6^th race and finally a 4^th in the 7^th  race.

6, 12, (21), 18, 10, 5, 4 = 55 (9^th overall)

Full Results and more go to:

http://www.b14.yachting.org.au/worlds