A record 19 Marbleheads and 4 BOTTLE boats from 3 MYA districts entered this Guildford Model Yacht Club Christmas event and enjoyed some wild sailing at times in a gusty variable west south-west wind, which varied from 30 mph down to 5 or 6 mph at the end of the day. It was only then that the tall A rigs were used, as for most of the day the Marbleheads were using C or C2 rigs and the small rig on BOTTLE boats.

All raced together on the same countdown with BOTTLE boats starting at 30 seconds and sailing a smaller windward leeward course, roughly half the 180 m Marblehead course. This proven objective was that both classes should finish at more or less at the same time. During the briefing a strong gust collapsed one of the gazebo legs and created a delay whilst this was packed away and the contents rescued. 

Only 8 finished the 2nd race as a massive squall caused a lot of rig and some gear failure. With several new faces to this form of racing, it took some time for them to settle on the right rig and trim and some had to retire permanently where no repair was feasible.

MYA vice-chairman Phil Holliday won the first race followed by multiple world champion dinghy sailor Colin Goodman in the 2nd and Martin Crysell in 3rd place. Colin, who had never used his C rigs before, set up a good trim and went on to win the next 4 races in fine style. In Race 5 Peter Stollery was the runner-up, but only 2 places behind him was his 9 year old son Oliver sailing a refurbished UPROAR and was absolutely delighted to be sailing so fast, especially downwind! The last race before lunch, Race 6, was won by John Shorrock after a really good start taking him to the windward mark first, after which he developed a big lead to the finish. 

This didn’t dent Colin’s score by very much and left him top of the lunchtime leaderboard with 6 points ahead of Martin with 15 and Phil on 16 points. As is traditional at this event GMYC served mince pies and hot mulled wine for lunch, which was welcomed to warm up cold hands and provide a central

gathering point for lots of chat etc.

When racing resumed the wind was still blowing hard from the westerly or west south-westerly direction and Colin demonstrating how good he was by winning races all the final 7 races with the exception of Race 9 when Peter beat him and Race in 11 when Phil beat him. During the afternoon the wind lightened and A rigs got an airing for the last 2 races.

The BOTTLE boats changed to their big rig at the same time, but it made little difference to the results as Peter Shepherd continued to win every race, beating either Keith Parrott or 7 year old Nathan Stollery into 2nd place!

Race Officer, Roger Stollery added up only the best 9 scores as he complained that he did not know his 19 times table for adding all of the multiple DNCs or DNFs scores! He first presented the BOTTLE boat trophy to Peter Shepherd and then called on the runners-up to collect their wrapped present, which was the only entry fee for this event. Peter thanked Roger and the Guildford team for running the events in somewhat difficult circumstances.

Colin collected the Brass Monkey for winning this event and also the MIDGLEY Memorial MUG for winning the whole GAMES series for 2019 with a perfect score of 500. He also thanked Roger and the Guildford team for creating a marvellous day’s sailing. One visitor from the Cotswold club, Garry Stephenson, who was new to Marblehead sailing had a smile on his face all day because he was thoroughly enjoying just sailing his Marblehead in such good whizzy wind conditions. His STARKERS hardly ever left the water!

This year GAMES included events in the Midland as well as the Eastern districts, which increased the number of competitors racing Marbleheads in open events to such an extent that the 65 total is nearly twice last year’s numbers and 50% more than those on the current Marblehead ranking list. It is a popular format encouraging average club skippers to go racing and with 10 events next year prospects look good for more relaxed, but competitive Marblehead sailing in 2020.

Marblehead Results:

1st Colin Goodman Chelmsford GRUNGE 13

2nd Phil Holliday Datchet GRUNGE 32

3rd Martin Crysell Guildford PRIME NUMBER 32

4th Peter Stollery Guildford UP 46

5th Peter Dunne Woking STARKERS 59

6th Alan Viney Guildford PRIME NUMBER 89

7th Peter Jackson Abington Park UP 90

8th Oliver Stollery Guildford UPROAR 94

9th Garry Stephenson Cotswold STARKERS 99

10th John Shorrock Datchet QUARK 111

11th Roy Pearson Guildford ROK 121

12th Charles Wand Tetley Guildford WHISPER 165

13th David Wilkinson Cotswold ROAR EDGE 184

14th Alf Reynolds Chelmsford ROCKET 189

15th = Mark Mortimore Guildford UPROAR 209

15th = Graham Hetem Datchet QUARK 209

15th = Andy Davies Cotswold ROAR EDGE 209

15th = Peter Kirby Woking PARADOX 209

BOTTLE boat results

1st Peter Shepherd Abington Park 11

2nd Keith Parrott Frensham Pond 30

3rd Nathan Stollery Guildford 36 

The tradeshow on the top floor of Datchet Water Sailing Club was very good with the usual traders selling a huge variety model yachting equipment and including a stand for the DF boats, which looked very impressive. I took along my UP and rigged it in B rig, set up a whole Footy stand with two ICE and a SUPABUG with drawings and even cutout hull panels. An interested grandad did take them away!

Of greatest interest was the 1976 BLOODAXE hull, still in 2 parts just as it came out of the moulds. This was en route to Peter Hopkins in Bournville. I took some photos and these are attached on the pic page. BLOODAXE was one of the the top Marblehead in that era and the hull shells weighed 38 ounces as it was quite a big surface area compared with the UP weight of just 14 ounces!

There was a very interesting foiling trimaran made in Australia along with some interesting 3D printing work done for a 6 metre in 4 large pieces and a mould for an A boat.

The AGM itself was a great disappointment not just because the Guildford and other 4-clubs amendment to the MYA motion one was not carried, but because there was no discussion or short introduction to each officer’s subject. We were told that the reports were on the web and that we must have read them by now, so any comments? The only discussion came the scrutineers were counting votes. Chris Durant asked basic questions about the budget and other finances and the Council clearly didn’t have an answer and it would appear there is still no budget for 2020. In previous years there has always been some discussion all through the AGM with officers giving a short summary highlighting the important issues in their report.

So our subscription stays at £14 and juniors are free. (the committee have now agreed that our club subscription should be free also).

GAMES 11 Results

18 races were sailed on the Little Broad at Filby, hosted by The Broads Model Yacht Club.

Racing started in a very light wind from the North, which is the most favourable direction at Filby, but veered towards the east in the afternoon.  There were 3 different race winners, during the day, but Colin Goodman (Grunge), Duncan Ellis (Grunge) and Vinnie Zammit (Starkers Cubed) gradually established a lead over the remainder of the fleet.

In the end Colin’s consistency won the day, after some very close and competitive racing. Colin has now established a big lead in the GAMES series, but the other podium positions and improver’s prize are still to sail for in the remaining 2 events at 3 Rivers and Guildford Model Yacht Clubs.

Results:

1^st Colin Goodman Chelmsford GRUNGE 18.5

2^nd Duncan Ellis Norwich GRUNGE 28

3^rd Vinnie Zammit Norwich STARKERS CUBED 37

4^th Ian Self Norwich STARKERS CUBED 63

5^th David Perkins Cambridge NIOUTRAM 82

6^th Mike Howard Broads PARADOX 83

7^th Mark Quayle Norwich PARADOX 86

8^th Neil Cousins Broads MONARCH 103

Report by the Broads MYC & Roger Stollery

Link to Photo Gallery

The forecast weather wasn’t good, but a light southerly breeze was going to make for good racing from the west bank. Peter Jackson, our friend from Northampton was first to arrive and together with Charles Wand Tetley we got set up and made good the sideways movement of the landing stage, courtesy of the Abbey Meads lake vandals!! From the bank the weed situation didn’t seem too bad, but it was the rain that was again the feature of the day. It rained continuously until we finished at about 2 o’clock.

The wind was southerly, light and patchy with the odd gusts either more south-easterly or south-westerly to keep one concentrating on getting speed out of this light air. All 5 of us got weed at some point or other, but this evened out and we had some good racing, very close at times and we all enjoyed that. Peter, who was made an absolutely superb job of building his UP from my moulds was learning how to get the best out of his A rig and picked up some tips and took photographs of my UP rig detail. Charles, who hadn’t sailed his WHISPER much was also learning, but his boat was going very well at times, particularly offwind.  Unfortunately the relatively new rudder servo in his BOOT developed a fault and he had to retire. However he sailed Martin’s PRIME NUMBER and my UP a couple of times and was delighted to win the last of the 8 races.

Martin, sailing his PRIME NUMBER with a short keel had the best day and won on merit as can be seen from the results, but he also won on handicap. He was presented with the Teapot Trophy, which was kindly brought to the lake by Peter Dunne who was deep into kitchen plumbing and couldn’t stay to sail.

Many thanks to Alan for producing the results schedule and working out the handicap results on the Excel spreadsheet. A photo of the handwritten results is attached is a picture.

Report by Roger Stollery

Short Report by Roger Stollery based on a report by RO Peter Kirby

Link to GAMES Results Page

Sunday 28th July dawned with a cloudless sky, comfortable temperature and best of all, a variable south-westerly breeze for the duration of the first Interclub GAMES event that RSW had organized.

The wind allowed a 200 metre windward/leeward course to be set along the centre of the lake.

Eight Marbleheads sailed 17 races in one fleet in a 3-10 mph breeze with gusts of 15 mph. There was close company in the beats to the windward and spreader marks, followed by runs accelerating into occasional exciting planing speeds to the leeward gate.

The racing die was cast from Race 1 onwards in that Colin Goodman (Grunge) in the majority of cases took the lead from the windward mark , thereafter to rocket down wind with others, notably Dave Andrews (Grunge),Roger Stollery (Up) and Martin Crysell (Prime Number) in hot pursuit, but were seldom able to depose Colin from taking the spoils.

In the wind shifts, local knowledge of the peculiarities of the lake was put to the test by ‘home representatives’ Roger Pearce (Prime Number), Simon Jeffs (Prime Number), Peter Dunne (Starkers), and Peter Chance (Starkers), but to no avail as Colin Goodman claimed a well deserved top place on the podium with 11 wins and this result now puts him at the top of the leaderboard of the GAMES series.

At the prize giving in the Radio Sailing Woking club room, Race Officer Peter Kirby was pleased with the competitors well disciplined conduct, which resulted in no protests and all incidents resolved on the water, as he had requested. The competitors thanked him and the three-man race team for running this event and taking on this GAMES interclub event.

The overall GAMES results are available on the Guildford MYC website www.guildfordmyc.co.uk and more information about activities at Radio Sailing Woking can be found on www.radiosailingwoking.uk.

Results:

1^stColin Goodman Chelmsford GRUNGE 17

2^ndDave Andrews MYSA GRUNGE 32

3^rdRoger Stollery Guildford UP 36

4^thMartin Crysell Guildford PRIME NUMBER 47

5^thRoger Pearce Woking PRIME NUMBER 63

6^thPeter Chance Woking STARKERS 87

7^thPeter Dunne Woking STARKERS 92

8^thSimon Jeffs Woking PRIME NUMBER 114