… for the Max from your sailing!

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Welcome to the entries for this year’s competition. As you will see we have received a variety of great photographs this year which is excellent as we hope to produce a 2024 calendar from these and some of the entries from previous years.

The winners of the competition this year will be decided by the votes of the members. Could you please look though the entries and vote for 1st 2nd and 3rd favourite as follows:

1st: Picture x

2nd: Picture y

3rd: Picture z.

One vote only per membership please sent to jtrimming@hotmail.com by 4th October.

Picture 1

Bacchus and Iona

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Setting off across Biscay

Picture 5

Picture 6

Picture 7

Picture 8

Are we having fun yet?

Picture 9

Maxi rally Yarmouth

Picture 10

Guernsey

Picture 11

River Stour 1

Picture 12

Isobel

Picture 13

River Stour 2

Picture 14

Isobel 2

Picture 15

Picture 16

Picture 17

Picture 18

Dolphins Holly Blue near Glenan Islands

Picture 19

Sunny day over Fowey estuary

Picture 20

Dawn – Pont Pill

Replacement of the sail-drive gaiter is a recurring task for Maxi owners and one that is costly through a yard. Malcolm (Denny) Denham has done it himself on his Maxi 1100 and has kindly shared with the group his experience. The pdf file below includes the lessons learned and has pictures through the procedure while the Excel file includes materials used and time taken.

https://maxiowners.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Saildrive-diaphragm-replacement.pdf

https://maxiowners.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Saildrive-diaphragm-change.xlsx

Many thanks Denny for sharing with the group.

There has been much discussion in the sailing media and the MOA WhatsApp group about biodiesel and diesel additives. From the WhatsApp group, it appears we have an expert in our membership with Malcolm Denham having written an article on biodiesel which appeared in Cruising Magazine in December 2021 www.theca.org.uk. Please find here a link to the article reproduced with their permission.

https://maxiowners.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Cruising-Dec-21-HVOs-final.pdf

For the first time MOA held a rally on the River Yealm over the weekend 4th and 5th September. Initially the harbour master suggested restricting numbers to 5 boats but there was so much interest in attending this great location that 10 berths were arranged and 8 boats attending. The rally was perfect for bringing maxis from the Solent and the West Country together.  Unfortunately, not all the Maxis could be accommodated together, half were on the visitor’s pontoon and other half on visitor buoys.

Walking along the Yealm

The Solent boats arrived in advance and made the most of the fine weather, giving some the opportunity to explore the wonderful coastline on foot. With all 8 boats on the River to enjoy the warm sunny Saturday afternoon, the obligatory pontoon party was held on the visitor’s river pontoon and aboard AmyLou.

Pontoon party on AmyLou

In the last of the sunshine and suitability lubricated, a fleet of inflatables headed for the harbour office pontoon, making the walk along the river path to the Dolphin Inn at Newton Ferrers. With Covid plans in place we had the Pub to ourselves and had a thoroughly enjoyable dinner. The return to the dinghies was slightly more challenging with no moonlight and the remoteness of the River, the river path was interesting to negotiate in the dark. With the low tide, some returned to find their dinghies aground even though tied up on the dinghy pontoon!  The final hurdle was to find your Maxi in the dark, oh the benefits of mobile phone torches.

Yealm 2021 4
Entrance to the Yealm

Many new friendships were formed, with local members enjoyed their first rally with the MOA.

The weather on Sunday continued to favour us, allowing some an easy return for the local ports, other to continue with a few days cruising and the remainder a couple of days beating back east to the Solent

Maxis attending were AmyLou, Asante, Cava, Genepy, Lookin Foor Kloos, Reflection, Skyfall, and Vouvray.

Maxis in the Yealm

Your Committee recently had a successful Zoom meeting.

In summary

  1. We are preparing a 2021 rally programme using, as a base case scenario, a rally structure that respects “outside” restricted social meetings. It would be good if we could find some new faces as Rally hosts, existing members will help provide guidance and support for the role. Any ideas for new locations? Please email to discuss – membership@maxiowners.net
  2. The MOA “Whats App” has been very successful with 44 active participants. If anybody would like tips on the best way to use this app please contact any of the committee members. One to one chat can be done using the “call” icon on the top right-hand side of the page. We have had active input from outside the Solent which has been encouraging. Please take a look.
  3. In order to keep track of our membership (& boats) we will continue with our annual membership levy. As there has been no MOA rally activity this year, we shall be sending members a token gift, in recognition of your continuing support.
  4. A couple of our long-standing committee members, Peter & Sue Stonestreet, are standing down this year after seventeen years dedicated work. Peter & Sue have been very active committee members and their enthusiastic input will be missed. We thank them both for all their hard work over the years. They will continue to be MOA members.
  5. Next year’s AGM location will be finalised as soon as we have a clearer picture of the COVID lockdown situation.  We look forward to seeing you then.
  6. Don’t forget to support the UK participants in the Vendeeglobe race. The web site is full of interesting statistics, Alex Thomson is 7th, 14.1 nm behind the leader, close.

Happy sailing

Richard Sams

Committee Chair