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Category: news

Open Sailing Afternoon #6 (30/7/22)

Because many members were away sailing at other events this weekend, it was great to have such an interesting mix of boats turn out for another Saturday Open Sailing Day.

Our Dutch guest Daan M  akkink and his wife arrived with a beautifully restored vintage 10 Rater, expertly converted to RC, and enjoying it’s first UK sail. Daan has obviously dedicated some serious hours in it’s restoration, and he spent a lot of time putting it through its paces on our lake. It was great to see his enjoyment and also ours in acknowledging his efforts. ( see Pics)

Neil, Alan, Paul, Charles and Andrew arrived with an extensive selection of radio yachts, ranging from RG65, DF65, DF 95 and IOM’s, with Paul Hounslow’s Manta IOM and Andrew’s John Gale built Triple Crown sailing well.  At any one time,it was possible to see all of these boats sailing in a fleet, and simply enjoying the fun of Radio Sailing.

However – the ‘ Icing on the cake’ to a great day of Radio sailing was when Graham Birkett arrived with his ‘Starkers’ Marblehead, and showed us all what amazing boats these are, in terms of speed and agility.

Social Sailing at it’s best, and lets hope we get more interest in these Open Days, when many classes of boats are present, and we have the time to compare, assist and advise and have great fun !

Andrew Peter

DF95 Social Racing practice afternoon (27/7/22)

Five Skippers put their boats on the water to have some sprint racing of a single lap and allow comparison of rig and sail settings and see what worked and what didn’t. Dave Williams very graciously agreed to loan his fin and keel to someone who forgot theirs and his reward was then to run the racing for everyone.  A big thank you to Dave for doing this.

There were some interesting results and differences in boat speed, although this was at times difficult to judge with the wind being very patchy.  By the end of the session comprising 8 races, the boats were more evenly matched  and some sailors have some future work to do, to re-rig or even obtain replacement sails before the next session.

Peter took the lions share of 6 wins for first, with Neil picking up the other two (in a borrowed boat) for second and Alan finishing with a strong cluster of podium places to edge Andrew out of third place.

An Album of photos taken by John Beech are available in the Gallery here

  1. Peter           172      6pts
  2. Neil              179     10pts
  3. Alan               04    17pts
  4. Andrew      288    19pts
  5. Richard         52   24pts

DF65 Social Racing #30 (27/7/22)

The forecasts were about right for wind today – generally from the NW but with some big swings to the W or even N and averaging about 3 knots so A+ was the order of the day for the eight sailors.  As the gusts (6 knots max!) came through there was often a false shift as it hit and if you tacked on that it often resulted in lost distance or even places.  Neil took the first race, followed by Peter in the second and John C the third. Peter took the next three and the final race, with John C having another win in Race 7.

With eight sailors each taking a turn we completed eight races of one lap plus a beat to the finish in just under two hours.  With the strength of the wind and the planned DF95 session to follow, the last race was also a single lapper.  There were no general recalls but that was in part due to the light winds we often had at the start leading to many boats being a good boat length behind the line.  Peter Baldwin took the day, with John Carlin second and Neil Westbrook third.

  1. Peter Baldwin            63       7pts  (5 wins)
  2. John Carlin                  11       12pts (2 wins)
  3. Neil Westbrook         03      16pts (1 win)
  4. Andrew Peter             19      20pts
  5. Alan Watkinson      373      22pts
  6. Richard Walker         39      27pts
  7. Charles Legg              21       36pts
  8. John Beech                 80       40pts

DF65 Social Racing #29 (20/7/22)

After the last few days of intense heat, today was a complete contrast. Sweaters and coats were worn to combat the chilly B rig wind. We welcomed Chuck again to our Wednesday races with him using B rig for the first time. All the starts were very good with no recalls. Alan, reading the wind shifts, dominated the day with 5 wins. Overall the racing was very close with the final decision of which course to take through the final gate could gain you a few places or lose them. Surprisingly with no gear failures everyone completed the 10 races.

  1. Alan Watkinson       12 pts 5 wins
  2. Andrew Potter          17 pts 2 wins
  3. Neil Westbrook        19 pts 2 wins
  4. Dave Williams          23 pts
  5. Andrew Peter            24 pts 1 win
  6. Chuck Millican         27 pts
  7. Charles Legg             31 pts
  8. Richard Walker         42 pts
  9. Malcolm Harvey       52 pts
  10. John Beech                  54 pts

DF95 Social Race Afternoon

The club plans to run an afternoon of DF95 racing on the afternoon of Wednesday 27th July to allow some warm up practice before the DF95 Nationals due to take place at Two Islands on the following weekend (30/31st July).  Start time will be approximately 13:30 and continue until approximately 16:30.

An additional event has been created and all are welcome to enter and join in the fun.

DF65 Social Racing #28 (13/7/22)

You couldn’t get a much better morning to race than today with “champagne sailing” conditions for the twelve DF65 sailors that turned out.  There was a good breeze straight down the lake that was towards the top end of the chosen A+ rig, with some gusts that were close to overpowering boats on the run and some lulls where the boats almost stopped.  Shifts were there and allowed places to be gained if you picked the right way to go in those shifts.

We were joined once again by visiting AMYA President Chuck Millican, and racing was at times very close and this occasionally proved difficult for the RO watching the line and record the sail numbers, without some external assistance.  We opted to run a race each and so with 12 races sailed (using the whole lake) each sailor had nine races to count (with 2 discards) , which were completed soon after 1pm with a final two lap race.

Peter Baldwin put in a rare Wednesday appearance and had the lions share of the wins (7), with Mike De St Paer gaining two, Dave Williams, Andrew Peter and Alan Watkinson one each.  So, the overall win went to Peter, with John Carlin relishing the opportunity to sail once again taking second after a very consistent day of podium finishes and Mike third, 4 points behind him.

  1. Peter Baldwin            63      11 pts
  2. John Carlin                  11       23 pts
  3. Mike De St Paer        35       27 pts
  4. Alan Watkinson      373      34 pts
  5. Andrew Peter           919      41 pts
  6. Dave Williams            33      49 pts (1 win)
  7. Simon Bates                69     49 pts (no win)
  8. James Douglas            73     52 pts
  9. Richard Walker          39     64 pts
  10. Chuck Millican           21      68 pts
  11. Malcolm Harvey    1019     75 pts
  12. John Beech                   80     77 pts