January is quickly disappearing as I write this news section. The last month and a half has been a complete blur.

Sydney Rigging Specialists were flat to the floor in December with work on not only race yachts but cruising yachts and the commissioning of production yachts; we also were involved in a few last minute architectural jobs and entertainment jobs (more about the entertainment job when we are able to give information out).

Every year I go through the entrants of the Sydney to Hobart race and Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Race and tally up how many contestants were customers of Sydney Rigging Specialists. This year 50% of the 88 starters in the Sydney to Hobart and 60% of the Coffs Harbour fleet had work carried out by Sydney Rigging Specialists. Add to this the commissioning of Elans, X-Yachts and Beneteaus you can see that we had an extremely busy pre Christmas period. Sydney Rigging Specialists prides itself on getting jobs done, an example this was when Jason Neuhaus from our staff found a cracked rigging fitting on a Sydney Hobart contestant’s rig on the Monday before Christmas; Sydney Rigging Specialists had the rig out on the Wednesday morning, carried out the necessary rod re-heads fitting replacement and had the rig re stepped so the crew could sail on Wednesday afternoon.

The results from the Christmas racing are something that we are extremely proud of at Sydney Rigging Specialists, (In fact I am still shaking my head in disbelief). Will Parker and Bruce Clark sailed aboard Loyal to gain a shock (and well celebrated) line honours victory in the Sydney to Hobart, Peter Milard’s Lahana was third, actually eight of the first ten yachts across the line are rigged by Sydney Rigging Specialists. For the Overall Handicap result Loki won (with Craig Garnett from Sydney Rigging Specialist aboard), third was Ragamuffin. All four of the yachts mentioned by name have had full out of yacht rig services carried out by Sydney Rigging Specialists in 2011. A look at the result board shows that eleven out of the twelve divisons were won by yachts that had rigging supplied by Sydney Rigging Specialists. The fourth member of the Sydney Rigging Specialist staff to compete in the Sydney to Hobart, Jason Neuhaus finished 2^nd in division aboard Balance. A fantastic effort allround.

In the Coffs Harbour Race, “Future Shock” had a line honours win, with the two DK46s “Exile” and “Nine Dragons” getting 1^st & 2^nd in IRC OAL, third going to David Forbes’ “Merlin”. All four yachts carry rigging from Sydney Rigging Specialists and the three IRC place getters all had out of yacht rig services in 2011. In division two Beaneteau First 40s took 1^st and 2^nd with Blunderbuss getting 1^st over Close Halled, third was King Billy, again all three have had work carried out by Sydney Rigging Specialists, with a new carbon spinnaker pole being built on New Years Day for Blunderbuss after they damaged their one on delivery to Sydney. A new rig and rigging was also supplied to King Billy during the year.

We are extremely proud of the results achieved by our customers and will be working again in 2012 to give our customers the right rigging to achieve the best result possible, no matter what they are planning.