The wind was a bit more south-westerly than forecast but of a reasonable strength, so there were some fast runs. We were delighted to welcome David Howard to this event and he sailed BOTTLE boat 92, so there were 2 of us sailing with the DF 95s of Mike Wilkie, Martin & Slieve as shown in the photo.

The violently changing variable wind made it difficult to sail, so David’s first racing event with his boat was a bit of a challenge, but by the end he had mastered getting round the windward leeward course. We all stalled at one point going to windward. Before the start of one of the races we had a collision which resulted in David’s jib being torn away from the forestay. Fortunately, I had gone with a spare rig and so was able to replace the jib.

Mike Wilkie was the star of the day sailing very well to win the event with Martin 2nd and myself 3rd having won the first race, and Slieve in 4th.

I’m afraid that because of current chaos in my study I have lost the scoresheet, but at least have started the schedule for the Summer Series.

Apart from the rather gloomy weather, conditions were near-perfect with a south south-westerly wind backing to southerly straight down the lake. Towards the end of the 12 race event the wind was much steadier from the south with a very good breeze, which allowed some exciting planing and even broaching on the runs. As you can see from the results, Barrie Martin was again master of the conditions with 6 first places and it was good to see Alan Viney come back after quite a break and getting 3 firsts to finish in 3rd place. Simon Johnson got 2 and sailed very well into 2nd place. 

With the recent heavy rain the water level at Abbey Meads Lake has risen again, so that it just covered the Environment Agency measurement post near the southern steps. Indeed all but the top step was covered with water as can be seen from the photo of Barrie launching his boat. I cannot imagine how the proposed River Thames Scheme to reduce flood levels is going to succeed when the ground levels at this downriver end of the Proposed Channel end up in already saturated ground resulting in these high ‘tide’ levels on our lake. However that is not our problem!

With the distribution of Roger’s Mini Bowsies at lunchtime, there was a discussion about items of rigging and setting of sails and a question of whether the additional line fore & aft line to the mainsheet line bridle ring was a requirement of the rules, in addition to the 2 main sideways parts of the bridle. I have checked with the latest class rules, current from 1 January 2024 and the latest V2 Rigging Instruction Manual (RIM) for putting the boat together. Only in the latest RIM is this third line and bowsie shown in only a couple of places in the images or in the words covering the bridle. So it would appear that they are not a requirement and you should not be protested for either not having one or having one. Why this is important to me is that it affects the number RMBs needed to make a set for one boat. I have just had a discussion with Alan, who had just fitted his and believes that RMBs would be good to have 2 more of, to go at the front of the jib boom to adjust the height of the boom of the deck and the tension on the luff of the jib, which would be easier to adjust than the rather cumbersome bowsies. Lighter and less windage too!

On the question of the mainsail and how to best rig it, this is not simple because each manufacturer has its own design for that sail & it’s luff curve and what one expert dictates may be relative to the luff curve of just one manufacturer. To give you an example of how the shape of the mainsail may be varied by the manufacturer I attach a markup in blue of the diagram on the inside back cover of the class rules. This is of course an exaggeration, but it is the manufacturers’ special luff curve rather than a one design sail, so there may be more than one answer to get the best shape for YOUR sail.

Going back to the rules question I carefully studied the current Class Rules and the Rigging instruction Manual. If in my recently renewed accreditation as an MYA Official Measurer, I was asked to be an Equipment Inspector for an event and was faced with this question at a hearing, I put together the considerations that would need to be addressed to answer that question of whether these lines are required by the Class Rules. I have already mentioned the decision that I have come to above, that they are not required. This is a separate attached document in which you may not be interested, but might help in the future if you are asked to fit one of these unnecessary fittings. 

I find the rules very sloppy and inconsistent and not helpful to the newcomer. Also because the attachment point of the mainsheet to the boom can be adjusted directly over the bridle it is not actually needed and goes against A5 Spirit of the Rules “…. and the cost of buying and maintaining the boat is kept under control to appeal to newcomers …”

The gloomy wet forecast didn’t stop 5 enthusiasts from enjoying 16 races in superb exciting conditions. The south south-west wind gradually veered to the south-west and was strong enough to give planing conditions on the run and at times it was more than the A rigs could cope with, as the strongest gusts resulted in nosedives and broaches. It was really great to see the fleet all in the line running flat out! 

When the wind became more south-westerly a strategic decision had to be made at the leeward gate, to stay in the strong wind near the far bank or follow the rumb line course in lighter and more variable winds on the beat back to the finish. Martin with his brand-new blue boat was the master of this and was only beaten 3 times scoring 11 wins, which you can see from the results. Slieve & Mike Barnes got 2 wins each to share 2nd and 4th places only interrupted by Roger’s single win.

At the last visit to Abbey Meads the water level had dropped ‘4 steps’ from the top of the bank flood level, but amazingly the recent rain raised the groundwater level, which feeds the lake, to within 2 steps of the top. This made the track on the west bank too muddy for vehicles, but okay to reach the western control area on foot.

We look forward to more exciting racing in a fortnight’s time on the 28th February.

This is one of the best Marblehead club events for some while, with a lot of superb racing between 5 good skipper/boat combinations. 16 races were sailed in a variable W or WSW A rig wind, which were completely unpredictable.  The relatively long start line set up some really good even starts, with very few incidents. The simple windward/leeward course with 3 beats and 2 runs and the short finish line close to the southern control area bank also made some exciting finishes. You could be a metre or so from the finishing line, but if you didn’t approach it with way on you could be beaten by a boat or boats passing either side of you with the speed that you so desired! This was both exciting and frustrating, but everyone won at least one race, even though they couldn’t match Rob Vice’s 7 wins, as he was unstoppable in these conditions sailing his UP. His son CJ started being a bit out of practice, but soon recovered his form with his GRUNGE to win 5 races. Very many thanks to Lockie Vice for taking the photographs.

Those local Marblehead sailors who didn’t take up Guildford’s invitation to race in this club event should consider the other monthly Saturday events on the calendar where you know that you will get good Marblehead racing without any weed, on well set courses. Go to the Guildford website on www.guildfordmyc.co.uk. Don’t worry if don’t have a Marblehead as the club can lend you the club boat for these events.

Happy New Year to you all! 

There is lots to report starting with my status as an Official Measurer. I attended the RYA Sail Measuring Course just before Christmas and have just received the certificate confirming that I can now carry on measuring your Marblehead or any boats/sails that need measuring.

The pictures of the flood on 10 January overtopping the edge of the bank at Abbey Meads at the top of the ‘tide’ is already on the website. It was an amazing sight and the strong north-easterly breeze gave some exciting sailing.

On the previous weekend Hampton Court ran a charity IOM event, which was won by the current IOM ace Craig Richards, but Peter sailing his old ISOTONIC finished 2nd and Oliver sailing his dad’s BRITPOP did well to finish 8th out of 20 and only 2 places and one point behind Nigel Barrow.

There was success again for the GMYC team at the GAMES 1 Marblehead event at Chipstead. It was very well run event in light and variable winds with David Allinson as RO and the hospitality at lunchtime and ‘those cakes’ were superb. Peter & his UP dominated both in the morning and the afternoon and after 12 races had to discard 2 seconds! Oliver is growing in confidence and sailed his UPROAR well, nearly always making good starts. In the very last race 12, Oliver and I were level pegging in the lead on the final run and we said that “we looked fast without number 39 in front!” However he misjudged the gate mark and caught his keel on the mooring line, which put him last and dropped his potential fourth-place down to 6^th.  There is a really good report on Yachts and Yachting’s website on this link: https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/270623/MandS-Marblehead-GAMES-1-event-at-Chipstead 

Looking forward…

Now that the Wednesday morning event on 24^th has had to be cancelled, the next event is on Saturday 3^rd February sailing for the ICICLE Trophy, which is for both classes and we want to encourage as many Marbleheads as possible to turn up and enjoy some good racing. There are encouraging signs that the class is clawing back some of its popularity and there are plenty of very good boats available with very little outlay. Just available is Peter’s Marblehead PITSTOP, which was top UK boat in the 1991 European Championship in Hanko, Finland where Peter finished 3rd. Neil Beer, a member from that period is downsizing and wants to find a good home for this top-class boat, which would be ideal for club sailing. The boat is in good condition and complete with 5 rigs which also should fit current Stollery boats. A couple of pictures are attached, one of which shows Peter sailing number 39 when he was 17 years old!  Please ring Neil on (07845) 759526 for details if you are interested.

As the end of February is looking very crowded, with the Hampton Court DF 95 open on Monday the 19^th and the Marblehead District Championship GAMES 2 at 3 Rivers on Sunday 25^th followed by WSS 4 on Wednesday 28^th, so the committee have decided to bring forward WSS 3 from the 14th to the 7^th February.

 RPS 2024-01-18

After the disappointment of having to cancel the event on 4 January for several reasons including the flood warning, even this event might not have been possible because of the very localised flood warning with the centre marked close to our lake. We agreed to hold this meeting because there were the minimum 5 entries by midday Tuesday.

There was both concern and excitement driving to the lake about what we might find at the lakeside. Martin and I had plenty of time to imagine various scenarios because we were both taking well over an hour sitting in queues which doubled our normal journey time. Mike Barnes was first to arrive promptly at 9 o’clock and then had to wait until we got there.  We arrived at the same time as an Affinity Water agent, who stated that 2024 levels were not quite as high as the last flood in 2014.

What we saw was amazing because the water level had risen to over-top the grass at the top of the southern steps! You could just see the top step through the slightly murky water and Mike stood on it for the photo to record this special occasion. The north-easterly wind forecast for 12 – 22 miles an hour was bitingly and numbingly cold and the simplest of courses with just 2 marks was set in line with the wind and using the club flag post to create the start and finish line, in line with the leeward mark. 

With no leaves on the trees and the sun shining it looked ideal, but the wind variation made it really difficult to sail to windward, particularly at the windward mark where you could see your boat tacking without you touching the helm! This caused lots of incidents including stalling, with the sun shining on the bright yellow mark making it incredibly difficult to judge where the mark was. Part of the problem with a bright mark is that the reflection caused by the sun confuses you into thinking that the reflection was the mark and so it was missed on so many attempts to round it. The best mark colour is dark blue like our permanent marks further up the lake. The two off-wind legs were of course great fun with plenty of fast planing in the gusts so long as you were on the right gybe.

The morning belonged to Mike as you can see from the scoresheet starting with 3 straight wins only interrupted by 2 wins by Barrie before the break. As we all complained about the difficulties at the windward mark, I then reset it much closer to the downwind mark and whilst this helped, rounding that mark was still difficult. 

With such a good start Mike wanted to finish the event at the break, but we continued up to 1 o’clock and sailed a total of 12 races after which we decided that enough was enough and we just wanted to get warm. After the break the racing belonged to Simon Johnson with 4 straight wins and after his run of seconds early on, this consistency won him the event with 18 points. There was a tie for 2nd place with both Mike and Barrie scoring 21 points, which was broken in favour of Mike with more 2nd places.

After the last race I handed my transmitter to Martin and picked up my camera to record some whizzy pictures in the strongest gusts. Of course, if one points the camera at the boats immediately the wind doesn’t cooperate, but the photos do record some of the speed achieved.

Probably we shall never see this amazing ‘stage’ again, as it was 10 years ago that John Townsend, who lived by the river bank and had his garage flooded and took pictures showing the western bank top step being over-topped by the flood water.

Finally a notice about the next Spring Series event 2 on 24th January. It has had to be cancelled, because the majority of our normal entrants are Hampton Court members and they will be at their club work party cutting the reeds at the edge of their Rick Pond.

5 competitors turned out to have some fantastic racing in very strong wind conditions from the North West. We had to ask ourselves were we mad to stand out for hours in the freezing cold wind and drizzle? Probably the answer is yes, but we thoroughly enjoyed the racing because we didn’t have to complain about light winds and this was a good way to finish both the series and the season for the DF 95s with some spectacular off wind performances in A rig. At times the strongest gusts were just too strong to avoid the dramatic broach, as the goose winged jib hit the water. The slick shape of the DF 95s slices so cleanly through the water that you hardly notice the amazing speed. On the other hand my BOTTLE boat makes a lot of fuss and looks fast, but goes the same speed until the really strong gust arrives when the speed is really spectacular with spray everywhere.

The simple windward leeward course had the windward mark laid in the area of ripples, but the wind was very confused and you could be sailing along on port to find all of a sudden you were on starboard and you hadn’t even touched the helm! There were several pileups as a result of this lack of control and the distant of the mark from the control area. 

There were several mishaps and I spent a lot of time rowing to fish out boats that had either driven into the reeds or had some winch unwinding problem or tried to sail over the back of another boat and hook the rudder over it or just switch it off.

I was pleased to do the rescues as the rowing kept me warm. We were pleased to stop at the due time of 2 PM having sailed 13 races and shared some food.

Martin worked out the scores to find that he and I had tied with 4 firsts each and the count back was decided on the number of seconds. For me it was very pleasing, that despite being made of a rubbish a BOTTLE boat can compete on equal terms with the more sophisticated DF 95s.

Whilst racing I tried to take some of the spectacular performances off wind but as you can see from the photograph was not very successful as it is difficult to handle both the camera and the transmitter at the same time. The photograph shows all of us clearly pleased with our days sailing when presenting the beautiful copper boat back to Martin. Mike also wanted to thank Martin for his efforts and presented him with a box of biscuits marking the end of another successful series of DF 95s events. We hope to build on this in 2024.

Heavy rain caused chaos on the roads with huge puddles, which caused the Gosport team to turn back when the roads were closed.

6 Marbleheads & 3 DF 95s sailed 11 races successfully on the same course in weird conditions when the change from southerly to westerly winds forecast at 10:30 didn’t arrive until lunchtime! The light and very variable winds were a nightmare for RO Martin Crysell, who handled it well including creating the traditional lunch break with hot mulled wine, sausage rolls and mince pies. Mike Barnes added a nice touch with crackers for everyone with jokes that were actually not too bad. 

At the break Peter Stollery & Simon Johnson were respectively at the top of the Marblehead & DF 95 leaderboards.

The gathering westerly wind became so strong that the tent protecting the tables of prizes, paperwork etc was in danger of being blown away and had to be taken down. The afternoon’s racing was a great deal of fun with speed and mishaps on the downwind leg and the black gusts flattening those with too big a rig on the beat. Simon Johnson continued his good form by winning all the races until Mike Wilkie & Mike Barnes eventually beat him in the very last race.

Report by Roger Stollery

We extend a very warm welcome to you to come and have some competitive fun at our Christmas Open meeting for Marbleheads and DF 95/BOTTLE boats. We hope that you will come and enjoy racing in a relaxed mode at Abbey Meads Lake, Chertsey to get you into the party mood. This is very much a fun event, with festive dress for self/boat anticipated! As usual, we will be stopping for lunch when mince pies and mulled wine will be served. We do hope that you will come and join the party. 

This year the event is again the finale of the 2023 GAMES Marblehead series with the MIDGLEY MUG, Improver’s and Junior Prizes to be awarded along with the Brass Monkey itself and the trophies for DF95 and BOTTLE boat winners. There is all to sail for as the GAMES improver’s prize (best improver outside the top 10) and the MIDGLEY MUG are presented at this event. The latest GAMES schedule is attached.

Following GMYC tradition there will be no normal financial entry fee.  Instead, please bring a wrapped present containing something that you might like to win!   The racing will be organised for Marbleheads and DF 95/BOTTLE boats starting using the same countdown, but at different times. The Marbleheads will start first and the smaller boats shortly after. The latter will have a course handicap with the intention that all will finish together, but the small boats will be competing within their own classes.

The racing will be conducted using the RRS 2021-2024 modified by the MYA SSIs & the IRSA Short Penalty. The relevant notices are as follows:  BRIEFING – this will start at approximately 09.40 hours. RACING TIMES – the first race will start soon after the briefing at approximately 10.00 hours – no race will start after 15.00 hours and any race in progress at 15.20 hours will be abandoned. The closing date for entries for the event is midnight on Thursday 7^th December 2023. Please enter Marbleheads using the MYA entry system, but please ring Roger if you are entering a DF 95 or BOTTLE boat on 01483 421 801 or e-mail him on stollery117@gmail.com and include your MYA number if you have one. If you don’t have a Marblehead or BOTTLE boat, but would like to come for a bit of fun, please ask Roger to borrow a boat.  

ABBEY MEADS Lake is easy to find. From wherever you are travelling, follow the signs to THORPE PARK and go to the roundabout at their entrance. Then travel south on the A320 towards Chertsey and you may see the lake behind the hedge on your left. After a few hundred yards turn left off the road after you see the Chertsey Water Board sign. The what three words location is same-fame-cabin. If you arrive late and the inner gate is locked, the number 1617 will be left showing into the circular GMYC number padlock, but if it isn’t, put this number in and slide the button at the bottom to open and just slide the horizontal bar back and replace this after entry. Please make a note of this or print this NoR and refer to it when you are at the gate. We look forward to seeing you!