Tony Edwards sailed his upgraded PARADOX very consistently to win this magnificent silver trophy engraved with winners going back to the1950s. Poole Radio Yacht Club at their superb sailing water at Longham Lakes ran 16  good races in 7-14mph variable WNW winds.

12 competitors from the South-Western, Met and Southern and Eastern districts enjoyed some exciting racing in B or C rigs, plenty of fast planing on the downwind legs and tricky wind shifts on the beats. These wind shifts and the poor visibility of the windward mark made rounding it difficult. Despite the inevitable contacts, penalty turns were carried out without any outstanding protests.

This event was a good example of how competitive older Marblehead designs can be if carefully prepared and upgraded. Robbie Nevitt’s PARADOX finished 3rd splitting the more modern boats, John Shorrock’s QUARK and Hugh McAdoo’s PRIME NUMBER, which finished 2nd and 4th. Rob Vice’s seriously upgraded Chris Dicks’ design MAGIC was 5th.

There were a few technical problems and boats going out of range twice caused PRO Peter Wiles to struggle against the wind in the electric powered rescue boat to recover boats sailing beautifully to windward to the far side of the lake. He used the power of the sails of the rescued boats to come back a lot quicker!

The prizewinners thanked Poole’s race team for running a good event and particularly Leslie Wiles for providing some absolutely superb cakes to go with the coffee that was available throughout the day. It is hoped that this event will have encouraged more sailors in the South-Western district to take up Marblehead racing and boost the numbers for the SW district Marblehead ranking event at Yeovil on  3rd of October. The next GAMES event is at Rotherham on 13 September.

Results:

1st Tony Edwards Yeovil PARADOX 22, 2nd John Shorrock Guildford QUARK 34, 3rd Robbie Nevitt Yeovil PARADOX 47, 4th Hugh McAdoo Guildford PRIME NUMBER 49, 5th Rob Vice Clapham 66, 6th Roger Stollery Guildford UPROAR 69, 7th Alf Reynolds Chelmsford PARADOX 73, 8th Dick Jobbins Solent CONSTELLATION 73, 9th John Bennett Eastleigh PARADOX 89, 10th Philip Udall Eastleigh CRAZY TUBE FREE 149, 11th CJ Vice Clapham 157, 12th Alan Veal Guildford ROAR EDGE 169.

Sailing 20 points above his handicap, Terry Rensch sailed a blinder with 2 firsts, 3 seconds and 4 thirds to win the Members Bowl in a 14 race club event. Although the light winds were tricky in the morning, there was enough wind in the afternoon blowing northerly straight down the lake to have some  good windward work and occasional planing off the wind. Well done Terry!

Entries are coming in well for the one day Marblehead Ranking Acorn Trophy with 15 confirmed so far, and with a few familiar names still to be added.

Well done Peter who finished 2nd in the IOM Worlds in Foster City California USA, held from 8th to 16th May, Peter lead for all but the last race of the 1st half of the event, well done. To see more visit the IOM worlds site here: http://www.usaiomworlds.com/news

Great sailing on a superb water at Abbey Meads with lots of your Marblehead friends!

The Guildford Model Yacht Club extends a very warm welcome to all Marblehead enthusiasts for the M&S ranking event at our water at Abbey Meads lake, Chertsey.

The Guildford race team will do their best to give you a good day’s racing. The current IRSA Marblehead class rules will apply and the racing will be governed by the RRS 2013-2016 modified by the current MYA Standard Sailing Instructions, HMS 2014 and the MYA Regulations governing the organisation of the event. The relevant notices are as follows:

REGISTRATION – 0845 to 0930 hours

BRIEFING – this will start at approximately 0945 hours.
RACING TIMES – the first race will start soon after the briefing at approximately 1000 hours – no race will start after 1630 hours and any race in progress at 1700 hours will be abandoned.

Please make the relevant boat certificate, PSN certificate available at the registration table, where the entry fee of £5.00 is to be paid as soon as possible after you arrive. We will inform competitors in advance if there is a requirement to add any prefix etc to modify sail numbers to avoid clashes.

As well as the ACORN Trophy and winners’ prizes, there will also be a Junior prize for the best competitor under 18.

Please use the MYA online entry system; go to the MYA website front page, click the calendar tab and scroll down to our event on 31 May where the entry form will appear. Please ignore the requirement to send the entry fee prior to the event, as we would prefer the fees at registration. Please enter by midnight on Thursday 28^th May, but don’t leave entering to the last minute – enter now!

For more details or if you want to borrow a boat, or have any queries don’t hesitate to phone Roger Stollery 01483 421 801 or e-mail stollery17@sky.com

You will find ABBEY MEADS lake easily, provided you don’t use the route recommended by Google! Please stick to the following directions. From whatever direction you are travelling, follow the brown signs to THORPE PARK and go to the roundabout at their entrance. Then travel south on the A320 towards Chertsey and you will see the lake on your left. After a few hundred yards turn left off the road, where signposted ‘Chertsey Water Treatment Works’ and where you should also see a sign, RADIO SAILING. If you are coming to watch and arrive whilst we are racing, follow the instructions on the gate and phone the number shown there to get the code to unlock the gate. Alternatively remember the 1617 code number to unlock the brass GMYC number padlock and replace it as you found it once you are through. If all else fails just sit on your horn!

Friday 20 February – SAIL TRIMMING: your rig is your engine and you need to have it developing maximum power, so that not only does your boat handle well and ‘feel’ good, but also sails fast. Sail trimming and techniques for achieving this by both improving standing rigging and running lines will be demonstrated on boats that we hope you will bring for a critique by Hugh and Roger.
We look forward to seeing you!

This was another successful workshop with 20 attendees from 6 clubs in the M&S District. We were pleased to welcome two lady members. Although Hugh was unable to bring along his beautifully restored 1930s 6 m, there was plenty of detail in re-rigging older boats that were brought to demonstrate improvements that can be made in adjusting ‘rigging’, from a simple method of making an adjustable Dyneema mast ring to close the gap between mast and sail, to basic adjustments of mast shape to enhance downwind performance.

Always the formal talk by Roger Stollery generates questions and after the coffee break he explained the reasons why in strong winds, rigs often perform better when moved further aft or with the mast in the same place, but with smaller jibs. As well as the rigging adjustments for going downwind, the alternative suggested for the conventionally Marblehead was to change the geometry to a swing rig, against which this boat usually competes. As there is already a swing rig mast position to change would not be difficult.

Another question about where the mast should be placed on an 8 metre that that has 3 different mast positions was answered by imagining the mast right at the bow or right at the stern and the effect that this has on the balance of the boat with the downforce the sail either immersing the bow and making the boat luff or the reverse. In the end it comes down to doing trials with the mast in the the existing forward and aft positions and testing which makes the boat go better.

What is good about these workshops is not necessarily the formal talk but the informal exchange of ideas and questions that has the meeting buzzing. Indeed sometimes Roger felt embarrassed to restart the talk when there was already lively debate in the Victoria Hall.

The next workshop is on Friday 20th of February