David and Elaine Edmiston

(read below why we know Elaine as Saint Elaine)

Passion X Looking Resplendent on a Wednesday evening.

David is a past Commodore of Greenwich Flying Squadron and also a tough competitor. We raced against David & Elaine’s Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 37 “Passion” from our first association with  G-whizz, both in GFS Twilights, where we are both in Blue division and for a season in the RANSA Winter Wednesday series. Passion was the boat that we liked to benchmark ourselves against, beating Passion on the water brought considerable pleasure to us. Somehow we feel sure that that feeling was reciprocated.

David built a DiDi 40 CR in his back yard “Passion X”, not a task many would contemplate. That process  was completed with the new boat being launched in February 2017. Passion X is 40 feet and will compete in different divisions to us, we miss racing against David and his crew. The few times

that we did beat him were cause for much celebration, we were generally satisfied if we still had them in sight as they crossed the finish line. David with Passion X has  played successfully with the really big boys in Black division.

I still see quite a bit of David on the water as we are mooring neighbours in the Lane Cove River, I do miss racing against him though.

A visit to Passion’s excellent blog is highly recommended. Especially to read the blogging David did during the build process.

Passion on the cover of Australian Amateur Boat Builder

Update: All Dr. Hook wanted was to be on the cover of the Rolling Stone, now if you are an amateur boat builder actually making the cove of Australian Amateur Boat Builder must be just as satisfying. Well done David, Passion X in all her glory right there on the 100th edition (First Quarter 2018) of Australian Amateur Boat Builder. I wonder if he’ll write a song about it?

Update:

He is at it again! Building another boat in his back yard, again the progress of this build can be followed on David’s Passion X blog. Which brings me to the subject of the wonderful lady that David is married to – a wonderful lady in every way.

Saint Elaine:
Saint Elaine is mentioned in many of David’s blog posts (normally without the title) as an assistance in his boat building activities. “She passed me the clamps”, “she helped clean up the saw dust”, “She brought me a nice cup of tea”, what is not written is that Elaine puts up with a large proportion of their leafy Sydney Hills district residential block being taken up with (seemingly) continual boat building activities, with the living area being covered by boat blue prints, or the late night communications with the boat designer and I’m guessing her,e also the massages to a weary body after a long day on the tools, not to mention David’s necessity to be up on the central coast almost every weekend for Laser racing.

Elaine has earned he title of “Saint Elaine” and while formal canonisation may not be forthcoming for a couple of centuries she has earned the title awarded her by David’s crew members and by many of onlookers in the sailing fraternity.

 

 

 

 

The earlier Passion flying one of here colourful bits.

G-whizz Elan 340