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 6th. 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 24th has had to be cancelled, the next event is on Saturday 3rd 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 19th and the Marblehead District Championship GAMES 2 at 3 Rivers on Sunday 25th followed by WSS 4 on Wednesday 28th, so the committee have decided to bring forward WSS 3 from the 14th to the 7th February.
RPS 2024-01-18
