Commodore's Comments
After a great Christmas summer sailing season and a very difficult couple of years prior due to COVID lockdowns and disrupted sailing seasons, we were all looking forward to lots of sailing during the Riversholme / Easter series which runs from end of January to the end of May, and a race each day during the Easter break.
Who would have thought that the river would be closed due to blue green algae, which stopped our sailing season mid-March on the advice from Barwon Coast and DELWP.
I have been swimming, fishing and sailing on the river for nearly 60 years and never known the river to be closed for sailing or to have had any blue-green algae outbreaks.
I have seen outbreaks further upstream from the Sheepwash area, but not as far downstream as the Barwon Heads township.
Apparently due to the higher temperatures and humidity that we were experiencing during February & March and low rainfall, which were the perfect conditions for the blue-green algae to proliferate and become toxic and harmful to be in contact with.
Hopefully this was just a one-off occurrence but with all the development around the upper regions of the Barwon River & Lake Connewarre, combined with climate change, who knows, this could be something we need to deal with a lot more in the future.
Even though there is not much happening over the winter period on the water the committee still keeps busy in the background with updates to the website, inputs to Talking Heads, attending Australian Sailing conferences, arranging the sail training programs, 5 knot applications and progressing negotiations with Barwon Coast for extensions to our clubhouse.
Thanks to all the committee for their consistent hard work.
A reminder that our Iceberg series of races commences on 25 September 2022 so check out the racing calendar on our web site and hope to see you on the water.
Thanks, and see you all soon.
Bruce Clements
Commodore
Ph: 0409 288 188
Email: bruce.clements@firehydraulics.com.au
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