Midnight Rambler Racing

On Saturday 18/4 Midnight Rambler took to the water to give some of our youth sailors a taste of offshore racing. Long time Ramblers Ed Psaltis and Andy Davison were joined by 6 local based youth sailors with varying amounts of keelboat racing experience for a 70 nm race to Hope Island near Dover and return. Despite being in the Derwent River and D'Entrecastraux Channel the course threw up some challenging conditions with a cold south westerly wind from 15 to 25 knots with gusts up to 35 knots at times.
Midnight Rambler generally excels in these conditions and our youth crew exceeded expectations as well to sail the boat with minimal input from the "old hands".
After 11 hours on the water we crossed the line ahead of our rivals to claim a win. Hopefully some of our newest Ramblers will join us for some more racing in the future.

After a successful summer season of racing on Friday night we attended the Combined Clubs Presentation Night at the Bellerive Yacht Club. Solid results in all four races including a win in the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania's Maria Island Race saw us take home the trophies for the Combined Clubs Offshore Championship in both the IRC and ORC Divisions.

A tradition for the crew of Midnight Rambler is to get together for lunch after the race and decide the winner of the John Whitfield Award. The award is named in honour of one of the legendary Ramblers Johnno (who skippered MWF Kayle in this years race) and is awarded "For outstanding effort in adverse conditions during the Hobart"
The recipient this year was great kiwi sailor Ken Ormandy from Perfect Storm Sailing who regularly sails his own yacht two handed in New Zealand with his wife Lori. He reckons having six extra crew on board is a luxury

A couple of Sydney Hobart legends enjoying a beer post race. Skipper Ed Psaltis (43 races) and one of this years Rambler crew Tony (Grumpy) Ellis (55 races) have an incredible 98 races between them, and from their efforts in this years race both look like they've got a few more in them.

Now that the race is done and dusted and the celebrations are over we can look back at what we have achieved and be proud of our performance. 5th place overall, 2nd in our Division and 3rd in Corinthian is a great result. Being within an hour of the overall winners time after 96 hours of racing we were always in the picture.
The first two days were tough with big seas in the southerly current against southerly winds that we saw get up to 38 knots and the fact that we got through this period with relatively minor damage is testament to the preparation that is put into the boat by Ed and the crew in the months leading up to the race. The boat loves this sort of stuff and going into Bass Strait we felt we were very well placed. The lighter reaching conditions in the strait weren't to our liking and we saw a few boats pass us but once the wind got behind us down the Tassie coast we were back in our element and started to gain places again.
A highlight of the race was the performance and cameraderie of all the crew which included two kiwis, two Sydneysiders as well as four regulars from Hobart.
Thanks to our support crew and particularly Ellie Eagles and Derek Inglis for their work and help in getting the boat to Sydney.

The Rambler crew are quietly confident if a good showing in this years Rolex Sydney Hobart. With around 130 races between us we have plenty of experience on board, particularly with Ed Psaltis (42 races and Tony (Grumpy) Ellis. Preparation is done and we are ready as we can be. See you in a few days in Hobart.

CYCA Commodore Sam Haynes was in Hobart today to help our Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Finish Partner, the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, with their launch of the Great Race South.

The theme was a big Thank You to the race's wonderful volunteers and plenty of them joined Commodore Haynes and RYCT Commodore Nick Hutton on board Ed Psaltis' Midnight Rambler.

Psaltis is competing in the 80th version of the Sydney Hobart for the 43rd time.

Congrats Ed and Thanks to all the Volunteers in Sydney and Hobart!

📷RYCT/Jane Austin Consulting

We have just completed the Maria Island Race as our qualifier for this years Rolex Sydney Hobart race and, despite having a slow and sometimes frustrating race, we came away with wins in the IRC and ORC divisions. After nearly 36 hours of racing the margin on corrected time was around 2 minutes to the well sailed Sydney 38 Eye Candy.
It was good preparation for the Sydney Hobart with 4 of our regular crew joined by Tony and and Adam from Sydney who will form part of our Sydney Hobart crew and Ellie Eagles who flew in from NZ for the race.
Our focus now turns to preparation for the big race on Boxing Day and we feel we are well prepared to take on our competition.