Southerly Busters GPSTC 2014 Round Up

Well another year has come & gone and we find ourselves suddenly at the end of the holiday period…. but hopefully at the start of a windy period!!

We’ve all seen on Bookface that all the other teams have done an annual summary of of their GPS Team Challenge (GPSTC) team results, so I thought why not us too.  It takes a team that is committed, dedicated and persistent to strive to the lofty heights of a 2014 ranking of…..  FIRST in Australia (of the bottom third of 27 teams) – so 19th 😛

As a team we’ve had a bit of everything this year.  Floating around in no wind, huddling under the angling club roof as hail comes in sideways, road trips to the golden lake, having to put up with our western colleagues from Connewarre, pretending that we’re interested in the technical mast bend curve & fin garble from the too serious ‘I-only-sail-if-its-30-knots’ Pit Crew mixed with the odd bit of banter with the bonno guys, laughing at the massive catapults as we negotiate our shifting sand bars… and all the while still managing to get the right balance of work with mid week sailing – so thats mainly sailing 😀

The Southerly Busters welcomed a number of new team members this year:

  • Postie Pete (Tiges);
  • Kempster;
  • Frank; and,
  • Geoff.

And had a few off the water too long with long term injuries – Mick, Simmo & Tony. It’s good to see them all starting to get back on the water now

As far as our team individual rankings for 2014 go, they are as follows:

In a team like ours a more important category which isn’t captured through a ranking table like above, is the progression and development of our sailors.  Over a couple of beers at Casa Del Jeppo at the start of the year (or maybe the year before) –  some time ago anyway, Daz & I discussed that something that should be strived for is 50% representation of current year results in your ‘top 5’s’ GPS results summary.  For those that don’t quite understand this, let me try and explain.  The GPSTC is made up of 6 categories – 2 second peak speed, 5 x 10sec ave speed, Alpha 500, Nautical Mile, 1 Hr average & Distance.  For each individual, the website stores that persons Top 5 results under each category.  So we thought a good measure of your development as a sailor would be to get 50% (15 out of 30) representation from the current year in your Top 5’s across all categories.

Based on this I am making an executive decision and am awarding a new award of ‘Southerly Busters 2014 Most Improved Sailor’ based on this measurement.  Of our 24 current sailors in our team, 4 joined throughout 2014 & 2 didn’t sail so are not eligible as it stands.  Of the remaining 18 sailors – 9 made the cut with 15 or more of their 30 Top 5’s being posted in 2014.  They are Harry, Daz, Joel, Pete Naz, Doug, Rob, Roy, Stelios & Tim – well done people.  In order, I am pleased to announce that the Southerly Busters most improved sailor’s are……

  1. Roy – 26/30
  2. Joel – 23/30
  3. Pete Naz – 22/30
  4. Robbie – 19/30
  5. Stelios – 18/30
    Harry – 18/30
  6. Tim – 17/30
  7. Doug – 15/30
    Daz – 15/30

Following is a slideshow of each of our 2014 Southerly Busters sailors Top 5 results:

Well done to all on a great years sailing.  Getting 50% Top 5’s gets harder each year so its a great measurement of your progression.

If you’re interested in joining IWC’s GPS team feel free to chat to me on the beach or shoot me an email – or anyone else in the team will be able to provide info as well.

Cheers and i hope you all get some great sailing in for 2015.

Dan (Stan :D)