GinGIN Festival - Sail Day

[SergeSera]

Good Evening All,

Today would have been a sail day, but instead we went to the GinGin for the yearly British Vintage Car Festival. The stars of the festival are the vintage cars from British factories, you have Daimlers, Triumphs, Aston Martins, MG's and Bentleys and others – the theme is Sports Cars, I am not much of a car person, but some seriously gorgeous cars were on display - I prefer motor bikes- there was a sweet 750 Triumph going for a sweet $18,000.00. The support acts are local arts & craft groups and us boat/ship modelers
GinGin is a small farming town about 1 hour travel from Perth.
On this day we were part of a display with the Australian Model Ship Society, we helped them set up their displays they helped us.
Thank you Gentleman and Ladies of AMSS.

The run up to GinGin took about 45 minutes - no traffic – the forecast for the day -forbidding - wet, windy and cold. We get set up for a 10AM start. It starts raining at 9 – bugger and blast -http://taskforce72.org/forum/posting.php?mode=post&f=2# every one is huddled under the marquis shelters – the crowds are – what crowd! At this point hardy individuals in wellies.
The festival proper starts at ten and on queue the rain has stopped and the sun is shining and there are hundreds of people – the weather stays pretty well like this for the rest of day.http://taskforce72.org/forum/posting.php?mode=post&f=2#

Lots of people turned up to the display - on show from Taskforce 72 are Roosevelt and the FFG HMAS Melbourne, and also HMS Ardent.

During the course of the day we had numerous requests for sailing of the big ships – ours were easiest the biggest models there and both Ardent and Roosevelt got out on the water to show their stuff, the crowds were very appreciative there will be a lot of photos of both ships on Facebook tonight.

As Skipper of Ardent, today was special for me as it is the 31st anniversary of her attack and sinking in the Falklands, I met several people who saw her in her homeport at various times and knew her history. We did not have time for a minute’s silence for her Crew that did not come home, but those people who shared their stories – Thankyou.

We were able to have a great day, the weather gods did their part and I was blown away by the comments off appreciation and positive feed back for our work/efforts.

It was a great day – met some wonderful people, marveled at the workmanship of our fellow modelers from AMSS and learnt about my craft from some seriously skilled and knowledgeable people.

I did not take that many photos as I was talking a lot, but that is what display days are about. Got to do some sailing as well - bonus

Cheers

Serge