David and Elaine Edmiston
Updates:
Magazine Cover
Building Passion XI
Launching Passion XI
Passion X Looking Resplendent on a Wednesday evening with owner and builder David Edmiston at the helm.
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 https://3gwiz.com.au/passion_wp/ (Some internet providers believe that the “Passion” in the URL indicates a site not fit for public consumption, barring access to what is essentially an amateur boat builder and sailor’s site) is highly recommended, especially to read the blogging David did during the build process.
Update 2:
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 https://3gwiz.com.au/passion_wp/. (See note above) Which brings me to the subject of the wonderful lady that David is married to – a wonderful lady in every way. Read a bit about Elaine Below.
Update 3:
Passion XI was launched at Woolwich Dock at 8:45 am on Friday the 12th of July 2014 in front of a number of competitors GFS members and friends. She is the first DD120 to be built, being fresh of the drawing board of Dudley Dix Yacht Design and I suspect with quite a bit of input from David Edmiston regarding many design features. You can read more about the DD120 on the designers web site here, interestingly at the time of writing the final image on this page is a picture of the “Prototype taking shape in Sydney Australia” – a photo of the upturned hull at an early stage of build in David and Elaine’s back yard.
Final fit out will take place over the next few days, but David was a very satisfied man almost as much as Elaine was relieved.
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 here 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 her 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.