Karl,
Please find enclosed some photos of the Chistening of our Opra Shade on Sunday 15th October 2006, and our crews.
As you may be able to see it wasn't good weather to christen the shade 40 knot winds,squawls, showers and rain. 
The guys were amazed at the ease of errecting( even I was sceptical in the high winds) but it took 1 person 6 
minutes to errect pulling up in the direction of the wind there was no fighting, the wind did the hard work 
then we all got under and watched as some other clubs struggle in the wind with ALL their crews holding all 
lines trying to secure their tents.
When the rain came I will concede the other clubs were already under waterproof tents, but we lowered the 
shade and attached our rain cover and pulled it back up again within 2 minutes as well as lowered the front 
end of the shade into the wind and rain until it eased then pulling it back to the normal position (I am glad 
we went with a rain cover as well!!).
Taking down took slightly longer, I lowered the shade as normal then took the rain cover off, as it was wet and 
by then covered in sand we just stuffed it into a garbage bag. The shade was also covered with wet sand which 
made it slightly bigger and a couple of kilos heavier, but still packed into the bag OK.
This morning i went over to the boat shed and put the shade and rain cover up (myself) and hosed them all off 
and let them dry in what little sun there was, I had one problem with taking it down and with a sore back and 
short temper it took longer. What happened was the sand had gotten into the joins and it was very difficult to 
seperate them, maybe I should stick the hose up the legs through the ground foot before I put it back up for cleaning??
All up a success, so from all the boat crews of Redhead S.L.S.C. thank you.
kind Regards,
Phil McLaren.