THE COMMODORE

Tony Vasey

I have a feeling of pride and humility in taking over the helm of such an illustrious club. Pride in that I follow a line of well known and well qualified sailors, and humility in that you have chosen me to lead a club that has achieved such a position of pre-eminence in the cruising world. I thank you for your trust and assure you that I would not have stood for the post had I not been wholly committed to the ideals that the club represents.

Mary gave a resume of the position of the club in her last report but I must add what she didn't say about what has been achieved under her leadership. She took over a club that had been shaken to its foundations and was bitterly divided. With a band of stalwarts she fought back to place the club on a sound financial footing and, what is just as important, restore it once again its old friendly self that strives to serve the requirements of its far flung membership and to encourage and attract those who are aspiring to become qualified.

At the AGM I coined a Confucianism that `He who lands on the crest of a wave must not stand still lest he should sink'. I apply this to myself and to the club as a whole. Mary hands over a well run and happy club but there is no room for complacency. I mused on what binds so disparate and widely spread a membership. Clearly we are all qualified and competent, but it is not just that qualification which holds us together. I suggest it is what that qualification allows us to do that is the binding force. It allows us to look towards our next passage, our next adventure, and to plan with confidence a more ambitious voyage. We are not a club of dreamers, we are an association of experienced sailors whose ambition is to push forward the frontiers of knowledge within the small boat cruising world. So I say to you -- slip the ties of shore-bound life and go out and fly the club burgee with pride.

We must have a record crop of circumnavigators on the seas at present. I envy them and wish I could join the parade. Do not be mislead by my advertising Shiant for sale. I am not swallowing the anchor; it is only that I feel the need for a slightly more modern boat on which to hoist my new burgee.