The Ocean Racing Club of Victoria (ORCV) is pleased to announce that following the 2020 AGM, respected Victorian yachtsman Grant Dunoon, is the Club’s new Commodore.

A successful businessman and yachtsman, Dunoon has a vision and plans on giving the Club a fresh direction while building on the strong foundations already in place.

The Commodore said he was looking at three key initiatives. “The first is focusing on increasing participation in ORCV offshore races; the Melbourne to Hobart, Melbourne to Stanley, Melbourne to Devonport and Melbourne to King Island.

“What I want to try and focus on is finding an avenue for growth. We are looking to add a rally component to our offshore races for Cat 3 boats.”

He says the ORCV has a unique advantage: “In that each of our offshore races is a destination one. If we hold a rally in conjunction with these races, those who sail in the rally can join the offshore race and enjoy the destination and the return sail home.

The second key initiative Dunoon says, is ‘Club Connection’. “The ORCV is a club without a clubhouse. Our members by and large, are members of other clubs. They have a ‘home’ club. They come to the ORCV to do their ocean racing, then go back to their home clubs. The ORCV has a reasonable relationship with these clubs, but I’m making it a focus to be more part of them. That relationship is important to us – we are holding out an olive branch.

Membership and volunteers is the third key initiative. Members need to come first. We need to thank our members. I’m going to ask the committee to phone every one of our members regularly and engage with them.

“We will ask members questions and feed the information back to the Club. We want to understand what we are doing right and what we are not, and fix a situation before it becomes a problem. I would like to get a process in place whereby we talk to our members regularly.”

Commodore Dunoon added: “We come from a strong foundation and there’s more we can offer to our membership. Our nine online courses have been overwhelmingly successful. Every course sold out and our membership has increased during this time.

“In closing, I would like to thank Martin (Vaughan), our outgoing Commodore, for his hard work and guidance over past years.”

For all information on the ORCV, please visit: https://www.orcv.org.au