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Dubai Offshore Sailing Club Michael Smith, Commodore You’ve come to a foreign city, got the work out of the way, and with half a day up your sleeve, what do you do but go looking for the local yacht club. You walk into a yacht club in some other land, that you’ve never been to before, this time the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, and someone asks casually “Oh hi Mike, are you sailing today?” It was Glen Raphael, who used to sail 49ers with then Royals club member Duncan MacLeod out with Kirwan Robb and Ryan Grieve, who all ended up sailing with our Mumm 30 team in France in 2003. He’s got a posting to Dubai with multiplex, as there’s a building or two to be built. He has got himself one of those awesome flying moths, the new McConaghy built one that weights 7kgs, flies on foils and packs into a box with it’s two piece mast smaller than a windsurfer! So then I wandered through the bar, with my host Peter Forbes, an Emirates pilot, and there on the wall is a large framed photo of John Duffin’s Emirates (Enesay) sailing along with the Opera House in the background. It is pointed out that the boat holds a special place in history, by finishing the Sydney- Hobart at 11.34pm on the 31st December 1999, and with no one else finishing in the next half hour, they officially became the “last boat to finish a yacht race in the last millenium.” I’ve yet to see if our friends at Guiness have picked up on that one. There was also a couple of cruising boats, including a quite stunning catamaran built in Perth and sailed across, with a typically Westralian on board, certainly well aged in the sun, but seemed to be missing the corks from his hat. Now take a look at the top of this areodynamic multihull mast - yes, that is literally his crow’s nest. He’s an offshore diving contrator, and after returning after a stint on the rigs discovered the collection of twigs and couldn’t bring himself to remove it! DOSC is typical of most yacht clubs in these parts of the world, a good quality floating marina, some very expensive power boats owned by the locals, and a fleet of various yachts from around 25’ to 45’, old and small through to new and glamourous owned by the expats. They also have a good fleet of dinghies, and the kids were out training on their Opti’s I was also taken down to one of the local boat building yards, where old style timber trading vessels are still built. The talent of the swarms of boat builders working away was truly impressive, all cut by hand. Picture above and next page
And when that’s all in, you may has well throw a couple of old cars on top to keep it all in! Pete explained that the reason the timber boats are still popular is that the Dubai Port Authorities (which like everything else, means THE family) consider steel vessels, no matter what size, to be a Ship, and need to take on a pilot when entering Dubai waters and port - while a timber one, regardless of size, is considered a Boat and the crew can bring her in and basically tie up anywhere. They have started building some pleasure boats this way now, their ability to form those complex curves really is something to see. Some boats get painted all white, while others are just stained - which I imagine creates even more employment, needing more imported labour to keep it looking good for years to come. While Dubai is famous for the efficiency of it’s container port, there is the secondary level of trade for local deliveries to very fundamental ports around the Gulf. As you can see, it’s shipping of old, with the docks stacked with boxes to be hand loaded into the hold of the boat. I can highly reccomend dropping into Dubai for a couple of days on your way through across the continents, between the old city, the ports and the now infamously excessive construction projects, it is a real eye opener. Below is what, when finished will be the worlds latgest building by 50% - 180 floors high! Oh, and did I mention in the indoor snow ski field? Photos by:Michael Smith, and Peter Forbes. Newsletter of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria • June 2007 31
Page 1 and 2: June 2007 Flag Officers Reports Liv
Page 3 and 4: COMMODORE’S REPORT Michael Smith,
Page 5 and 6: Membership Committee Deanne Colledg
Page 7 and 8: hundred metres. Without much breeze
Page 9 and 10: Top: Laurelle just outside Sydney H
Page 11 and 12: Doyle Sailmakers Whether you plan t
Page 13 and 14: Single Handed to Port Fairy and ret
Page 15 and 16: ‘Warrin Bunjil’ moored in Port
Page 17 and 18: Photo: Ewen Bell Newsletter of the
Page 19 and 20: I cannot conclude without reporting
Page 21 and 22: The Black Bottle - A Personal Refle
Page 23 and 24: Tall Ships Victoria Peter Harris Ta
Page 25 and 26: Thanks to John Duffin for his last
Page 27 and 28: Lively Lady returns. David Seaman O
Page 29: Newsletter of the Royal Yacht Club

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