Some of the best Marblehead sailors in the country from 3 districts entered this annual event for the famous bronze Mermaid.  A fleet of 12 took to the water in brilliant sunshine and a cantankerous breeze, which couldn’t make its mind up whether it was northerly or north-westerly.  RO Martin Crysell twice reset the 100 m windward/leeward course as the wind went gradually more westerly in the afternoon, with even more variable direction and strength.  Despite this a total of 16 races were sailed.

During the early part of racing we were honoured by having a fly past of the Red Arrows directly overhead, on the return to their base having flown over Windsor Castle for Trooping the Colour.

From the start it was clear that Peter Stollery sailing his UPFRONT was going to be the boat to beat with 5 clear wins only interrupted by a 4th in Race 4, beaten by Phil Holliday & Darin Ballington sailing GRUNGEs and Rob Wilson racing a STARKERS.  His dad, Roger beat him in Race 6 and then he lost the next 3 to Tony Edwards, who was sailing a GRUNGE.

The lunch break was enjoyed by all not just the break from racing, but as Darin put it “I enjoyed being out with my sailing ‘buddies’.” and a catch up on the lost months.

Unsurprisingly Peter was at the top of the Lunchtime Leaderboard with 11 points, followed by Phil with 25 & Darin with 26.

In the afternoon, Peter didn’t have it all his own way as Darin beat him in Race 10, as did Rob in Races 11 and 13 & Phil in Race 12.  Keith Parrott, who was scoring, observed that “Peter certainly gave a master class in picking the right course and spotting the wind shifts.”  Peter put his success  down to “…good starts and balanced swing rig, which he altered very little from the totally slack ‘sail bag trim’, just tensioned with the last 50 mm of winch trim with the transmitter, as necessary when beating.”

The prize winners thanked the Guildford/Frensham race team for running another good event at Abbey Meads, despite the frustrating wind.

Results:

1st Peter Stollery Guildford UP 19

2nd Rob Vice Guildford GRUNGE 39

3rd Darin Ballington Manor Park GRUNGE 45

4th Tony Edwards Yeoville GRUNGE 50

5th Phil Holliday Datchet GRUNGE 51

6th Roger Stollery Guildford UP 70

7th Rob Wilson Lincoln STARKERS 73

8th Michael Thomas Eastleigh STARK 86

9th Peter Jackson Hollowell UP 92

10th Peter Kirby RSW PRIME NUMBER 116

11th John Cleave Ryde GRUNGE 137

12th Geoffrey Bremner Datchet F5 161

Winner of Best Improver’s prize &

Vic Cooney Trophy – Tony Edwards

As you may know Guildford Model Yacht Club ran a very successful Open event for DF 95s last week at our superb sailing water at Abbey Meads, Chertsey.  Everyone who came thoroughly enjoyed it! We would like to encourage you and your members to join in our sailing on alternate Wednesdays 10 o’clock till 2 PM.

In particular on 2 June we are offering a very special prize, that every DF sailor will want on their boat!  This is new, unique and will help to make sailing your boat easier and more pleasurable.  

This prize will be presented to the first placed visitor at the end of racing.  This is an ordinary club event that will be carried out in a relaxed manner, but efficient way for which Guildford is renowned.  

Please forward this on to your members as everyone is welcome .  We would be delighted to see you so please contact Roger on (01483) 421801 for details.  

Guildford Model Yacht Club hosted their first event for this class and attracted 9 entries from 7 clubs.  Despite the cantankerous light and variable breeze, which was forecast to blow from the north-west, but instead blew from the north-east, 8 competitors enjoyed 14 races of a 300 m windward leeward course.

The DF 95 is a one design just under a metre long and has transformed the accessibility of a quality radio racing yacht at a reasonably economical price.  As a result the racing was very close with skippers who could pick the right wind shifts and sail the course to avoid the holes in the wind came to the fore.

In the first race Martin Crysell demonstrated this skill and won from David Cole and Barrie Martin.  This was a pattern which set the scene for the whole of the event.  In Race 2  the order was reversed, but with Glenn Meekcoms taking 3rd place.  Martin won Races 3 and 4, but then let David win Race 5.  Glenn, who was consistently in the top 3 came good in Race 6 to win from Charles Wand-Tetley and Martin. Race 7 was won by David from Barrie and Colin Honour and as the wind was becoming more variable and inconsistent, the lunch break was taken, 

The lunchtime leaderboard had Martin on top with 12 points closely followed by David with 13 and Glenn with 16 points.

Race Officer Roger, Stollery was expecting the wind to back to the forecast north-westerly, but this wasn’t happening and so another 2 races were sailed, after which the wind became very calm and fitful.  In these conditions Martin took Race 8 from Barrie with David 3rd and in Race 9 Barrie reversed this order with Glenn 3rd. 

The beauty of radio racing at Abbey Meads Lake is that the club has 2 control areas with the banks of the lake at right angles and Roger decided to move the operation to the southern bank to allow a better windward leeward course to be set.  This took just over half an hour as in addition to moving cars and gear etc, the marks needed to be reset etc.

On the new course Barrie sussed out the constantly varying breeze to win Race 10 in front of David and Glenn, but it was backing even more westerly and the course was reset again. 

Perhaps it was just local knowledge or just pure skill of picking the right shifts and following the right gust path down the run, but Martin won Race 12 from Barrie and both Races 11 & 13 from Les Thorn, who was enjoying the stronger winds and the impacts of the heavy dark gust streaks, as he had been struggling in the lighter conditions.

Leen Buurman had beaten only a few competitors during the day, but in the last Race 14 he made up for that by sailing through the fleet from a good start to round the windward mark first with a small lead and then screamed away in a black gust into a 10 metre lead. On the beat he kept in front of all but David to finish 2nd and was absolutely delighted.

At the prize giving Roger  thanked everyone for coming to Abbey Meads and helping to create an enjoyable event sailed in a very good spirit of sportsmanship.  He also thanked Judith Buurman for volunteering to act as the assistant RO and recording all the finishing places and presented her with a bottle of wine.

In preparation for the event the club decided to rededicate, the Ash Trophy, originally presented by David Coode and Mervyn Dackombe for the 36″ class, as perpetual trophy for this DF 95 class annual open event. 

This was presented to the winner, Martin Crysell as well as the prize he collected from the table.  He thanked Roger and the team for running another good event at in difficult conditions.  David collected the 2nd prize and both Barrie and Glenn tied for 3rd place, which was broken in favour of Barrie, who had more first places.  He collected the prize and thanked Guildford for their efforts in running the event.  

As is traditional at Abbey Meads, the club always present a prize for one of the most important competitors at the event, who are not the winners but the other competitors without which there would be no winners.  So the prize for the last-placed skipper at the prize giving went to Leen Buurman; he was both surprised and delighted!

The club are looking to build up the membership for sailing this class with events on alternative Wednesdays, so please come along for more racing and contact Roger Stollery on (01483) 421801 for details.

Results:

1st Martin Crysell Guildford 22 points and the Ash Trophy

2nd David Cole Hampton Court 30 

3rd Barrie Martin MYSA 35

4th Glenn Meekcoms Cole House Fort 35

5th Colin Honour Chipstead 57

6th Les Thorn Hawley 58

7th Leen Buurman Hampton Court 80

8th Charles Wand-Tetley Guildford 84

Link to Photos

At long last GMYC have been able to run a Marblehead club race for the first time since 15 February 2020 and it felt marvellous, as the sun was shining and the gentle north-easterly wind looked very inviting.  Getting the gear ready included a welcome for Charles bringing the keys for the new padlock, Peter Dunne for bringing the magnificent Elstead Cutter trophy, which he had held for 2 years, and Les Thorn who had enjoyed our last DF 95 event.

The various problems of the past year were put behind us and we are getting to grips with the technique of installing the new dismantleable launching platform, which this time we were able to ‘launch’ down the strings of the western steps, without getting into the water or the need for launching the rescue boat.  This allowed us to launch the Marbleheads without any depth problem and to enjoy 9 good races.

We used the 2 usual northern blue marks and one leeward mark for the windward/ leeward course and decided that we would try using a ‘gate’ start, which was absolutely brilliant, not just because there was no need to set an accurate starting line or the novelty, but with the wind varying by more than 90° at some starts it provided much hilarity, where the gate boat on port was actually facing the wrong direction forcing the competing boats to panic to be able to cross the gate boat’s transom on standard.

Initially we started with just 3 boats, but Rob Vice turned up with CJ’s GRUNGE after the first race and then showed us the way round the course only losing one race to Roger’s UP.  See the attached results. Whilst it was a tall rig wind, Roger started by using his C rig to try out his new ‘holdaback’ for the jib, which worked fine in the gusts, but was an embarrassing problem in the lighter winds leading to UP being ‘hove to’ and when stopped head to wind made incredible speed backwards with a bow wave off the transom!  However useful lessons were learnt.

Rob was absolutely delighted to win and receive the beautiful silver Elstead Cutter trophy, which he had always admired, but never won.

Abbey Meads Lake showed itself once again to be a great place to sail, and we are hoping to attract more new members to come, sail with us and enjoy the venue.  See all the benefits that are listed on the latest ‘What is good about sailing at Abbey Meads Lake’.

Report by Roger Stollery

Report by Roger Stollery

Guildford Model Yacht Club club sailed its first event at Abbey Meads for 4 months and we had some really good sailing in the bitterly cold north-westerly winds. There was lots of close racing with half a dozen entries with equal numbers of DF 95s and BOTTLE boats.

The event was not without its problems.  Having removed the difficulty of the wooden launching platforms being vandalised by replacing them with our removable lightweight aluminium body platform into our metal container, we thought we were clear of the vandals’ influence.  How wrong we were, because we were shocked to find that the vandals had filled the keyway to the main padlock securing the container with two-part epoxy resin!

After an hour so of trying to find a solution to ‘breaking in’, we gave up and got on with the sailing which, as this was in school holidays, had attracted Roger’s son and grandsons to add to Martin, Charles and Les Thorn’s DF95s.  

Charles had to leave early and later the children got cold and amused themselves out of the wind in the car, which left 4 of us enjoying some really good racing with exciting speeds in the strong  gusts off wind as well as tactical beating to keep on the right side of the shifts and to avoid the calmer patches. 

Although we didn’t keep any scores it was clear that Les was the winner of the most races whilst all of us won at least one race.  Les was especially delighted to be able to say that he had beaten Peter Stollery!

 This showed that the performance of the DF 95 and the BOTTLE boat are equivalent in these conditions, although going downwind at the same speed they look so different with the slim bowed 95s cutting through the water cleanly, whilst there is spray everywhere from the crude shape of plastic cup & bottle bow.

Hopefully these Wednesday morning events will attract more visitors to enjoy the fantastic sailing at Abbey Meads Lake and help to build up Guildford’s fleet of DF 95s. 

We’re Back Racing from Wednesday 7th April, come and join us.

On Saturday 24^th of April we have a WORK PARTY, Marcin will be cutting vegetation. Help required with Clubhouse clearance and minor jobs. Starts at 09:00 for as long as you can help.

This was a marvellous event, despite the restricted entry of 6, which was for club members only.  It was marvellous because this was the first Marblehead event since the Mermaid at the beginning of March.  There was a good west north-west wind and on occasion at the very top end of A rig with some exciting planing and rudders in the air etc.  Competitors had travelled quite a distance and were rewarded by some good competition, with close finishes.  In addition, Rob Vice brought his new orange GRUNGE to be raced for the first time and Peter Jackson was trying one of my Winder fins on his home-made UP.

Thanks to the help from Martin Crysell, who was disabled by broken bones in his right foot at the last minute and Charles Wand Tetley, whose radio gear failed after the first race, 16 races were run.  Both Rob and I let them sail our boats for a few races, so everyone had some sailing and we all enjoyed the sail and the reminder that sailing these boats is great fun.  Martin won 2 races and Peter Jackson was delighted to have won a race with his souped up UP.  The remaining races were shared by myself and Rob, but whilst I won 6, Rob won 7 and so took the ‘hard’ part of the BRASS MONKEY trophy.  The story is probably best told not by the attached scoresheet, but in the photographs, which were taken by Robert and I when we were not racing in Races 6, 7 and 8.  

We learned to install the new landing stage on the south bank at right angles to the steps as shown on the photographs and it felt very firm and stable.  With the ‘tide’ being relatively high, we won’t need to use it for launching our shallower draft boats in the first event 2021 on Wednesday 6 January.