News & Reports

Another good morning’s racing at Abbey Meads – 14 races!

The XC weather forecast did not look good on Tuesday afternoon, but to our surprise it was sunny between the clouds with a light breeze from basically the west, although there were gusts from the south-west and the north-west, as one can expect at Abbey Meads!

Apart from the odd occasion when one boat got away on the lucky gust the racing was remarkably close and there were some very close finishes, where you could never guarantee your place until you actually crossed the line.  There were many place changes in the last metre or so, which was both frustrating and exciting.

Just looking at Alan’s scoresheet you can see that is very little difference in the top scores.  Martin deserved to win, particularly as he had to go at 1.30 and missed the last race, which concluded the sailing when one of the many black clouds turned into heavy rain.

On a point of safety the plastic dinghy should not move from the top of the steps whilst the marks are being collected, as this is where there is a potential risk that needs to be covered by the safety boat.

The next event at Abbey Meads is the Nicklin Trophy is for Marbleheads, with DF 95s joining in the afternoon on Saturday 20th of May, so put it in your diary and do not miss it!

Roger opened the Abbey Meads gates for our friendly Polish gardeners, Marcin & Erik at 8 AM and they worked really hard all day and in almost uncomfortably hot conditions to clear the south bank of brambles and nettles etc.  In addition the brief was to cut down the trees up to the southern corner.  To help them Roger & Martin put together the launching platform, which was used to provide a platform to get closer for cutting the main trunks of the trees, which were well out into the water as a result of the current ‘high tide’.

It was sunny all day and seemed like the first day of summer, working in shirt sleeves.  The team of Martin & Slieve used David Coode’s sprayer, to spray his recommended weedkiller over the brambles & nettles.  Meanwhile, Roger was replacing the blue rope mark mooring lines, which had worn badly, with polyester line and adding a wooden bowsie to each counterweight line to make shortening easier.  To ease the problem of tangled lines when setting the marks, each now has a bucket to contain the heavy & lighter counterbalance weights, mooring line and buoy.  This has been successfully trialled recently.  The lengths of the longest, yellow C & D buoys is 8 metres, whilst the white 1, 3, 7 & 8 buoys are 7 metres and the red 0 at 4.5 metres. The yellow buoys usually form the start marks where the water is deepest, but recently with the high tide the buoy D’s line was only 7.5 metres and drifted. Hence now with the extra length both C & D lines should be at OK.

In the afternoon the tree cutting operation moved to the west bank where Marcin had an almost impossible task to reach the main branches of the biggest tree.  The structure of the launching platform was under immense pressure as Marcin was operating with both posts and decking at a severe angle, as it was thrown as close to the trees as possible.  It survived and with Marcin using our new waders, he was able to achieve the impossible and remove all the upstanding trunks.  So all the big trees on both banks were cut down, with the exception of just one tree, which was supporting a large moorhen’s nest. Roger’s activities were reduced to taking photographs as the Mountfield 5 in 1 motor would not start and would not allow him to do the hedge cutting.  See the separate page for this and below are the BEFORE & AFTER images of the offending trees.  It looks amazing clear!

Link to: www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/261383/Footy-class-Videlo-Globe-at-Frensham-Pond

The word summer does not really describe the first event in this series, because it was cold with no sun and a biting easterly/south-easterly wind.  5 diehards started racing from the southern control area, but we all found the wind incredibly frustrating when you would tack without doing anything, fall into holes and struggle to keep your boat going in the desired direction.

After 4 races we decided to change to the western control area where at least you could see that the wind appeared to be blowing onshore more consistently.  Roger reset the marks with a start line parallel to the bank, which relied on the honesty of the competitors to stay behind the line on the gun.  This worked out okay with two windward marks to give different angles of windward beat each time returning to the start line which became the gate.

Whilst the wind was not as variable on this course it was still very variable with very little wind on the starting line.  Whereas Roger and Martin were the leaders at the change, birthday boy Martin chalked up a total of 6 wins to win the event easily.  However everyone had a go at writing down the scores, which was your obligation if you won a race, with Slieve getting a single chance, David & Alan with 2 wins and Roger 5.  Alan will produce the proper scoresheet later, but the total scores were Martin 13, Roger 22, David 34, Alan 35?  and Slieve 40 points.

After 16 races we were all were keen to get back into our cars to get warm, but as a bit of a celebration Martin was presented with a couple of bottles of beer to celebrate both his birthday and winning the event.

After knowing that many of our Marblehead sailors were away on holiday, or preparing their boats to go to Italy the for the World Championship, I emailed my usual local M and DF groups to find out if this event for the Elstead Cutter was going to be on but there was a poor response. Paul Tickner wanted to sail his DEFECTOR 10 rater for the first time since spending a long time refurbishing it. We were able to check the mast position et cetera and it sailed OK, hands off, but Paul soon found a problem setting his new sails properly on an insufficiently stiff mast and retired early to sort this out.  

Barrie came with his London MYC friend, Celia, who sailed his DF 95 with Mike Wilkie, who came came with his ace SOLO friend, Ian to race their DFs.  A simple windward leeward course was set with a short start line to add interest to my Marblehead match racing with Barrie and the 2 fleets set off independently.  The DFs recorded 7 race scores with Mike scoring 8 with 4 wins, Ian 11 with 2 wins and Celia 14 with a single win.  

As Barrie, with his STARKERS and I with my UP are normally well matched, we had some superb racing together recording 10 match races, each finishing with 5 wins. Barrie won most of the starts, so it was a question of choosing the right shifts in the light to moderate northerly wind or sailing the best of offwind course to catch up.  As Barrie won the last race, he won the event and Celia presented him with the Courage Cock, GMYC’s match racing trophy, which has only been sailed for once since 2015. 

It turned out to be a very pleasant morning’s sail and quite warm in the sunshine as we finished, well satisfied by 2 PM.

On another level, in large entry international competitions where there have been suggestions that the number of seeding races in HMS should be increased from the current single Race 1, but is clear that all of the first day, 20% of the racing time, or more maybe in very light airs, would be in the mixed ability heats, where this sort of great racing between equals would be missing.  That would be a big mistake because as soon as the fleet is divided up into 5 standard heats much better racing would be experienced between equals at every level, like our match racing today, whether you are in E heat or A heat. 

Report by Roger Stollery 2023-04-17.

The event on Wednesday was very exciting because of the strong wind, starting with a forecast of 12 to 24 mph south-westerly and by lunchtime 23 to 44 mph south south-westerly. We decided not to use the western control area because of the problem with the mud and the recent heavy rain. Roger set an unusual course with a running start, basically in the clear SW air off the south bank western corner with the leeward mark directly downwind as far as we could reasonably see to judge the mark rounding. It was impossible to use 2 leeward marks for the gate because the ‘tide’ had risen 2 feet with the recent rain and only the yellow mark C had a long enough mooring line.

Frensham Pond used a running start for their 2023 10 rater/Marblehead open and it worked very well with the starts being remarkably ordered with a much less aggressive and more cautious approach than windward starts. The same happened yesterday and whilst there was still a relatively quiet start, the strong gusts made for very exciting racing with the boats going flat out downwind. Approaching the leeward mark with the full impact of the black gusts there were many nosedives, rudders showing and broaching with boats hardly under proper control. Even BOTTLE boat no:4 had a couple of goes at being bows under at 45° to the surface!

Most used A rigs, but Slieve used B rig throughout the event and could not complain about always being last, because as you can see from the results he won 2 races and was relatively consistent in the others. Roger had no real choice because the BOTTLE boat small rig is for exceptionally strong consistent winds. What was remarkable was that the thin polythene sails and the thin 6 mm diameter cantilevered mast, compared with the DF’s 8 mm, stayed in one piece despite the abuse of hitting the water at such speed in the broaches.

Whilst going downwind was very quick, it took longer to beat back and it was a challenge to be get on the right shifts, not get too far off the rhum line and tack well et cetera. The gust caused amazing eddies in which you could be on either tack within seconds without touching the helm! Whilst the BOTTLE boat normally struggles to be competitive to windward against the DF 95s because of the short waterline length, all those other factors and getting a good start, helped Roger to some good results. There was one offwind leg where the dead run became a quartering run with the more southerly breeze and when heeled BOTTLE boat no: 4 achieved an incredible speed, which has never been seen before, going absolutely flat out in a cloud of spray, as if a rocket was propelling it!

Mike Wilkie who had been off 3 months because of a chest infection was absolutely delighted to get back and enjoy the excitement of the racing. He made the comment as we were packing up as the rain had just started at 1 o’clock “…they not know what they have missed!”.

A slightly smaller entry than previously was offset by the quality of the 9 sailors, who enjoyed 16 races in superb conditions at Abbey Meads.  The northerly wind straight down the lake was at times at the top end of the A rig strength, giving some exciting downwind legs on the windward leeward course.

RYA pathway coach, James Hadden borrowed Roger Stollery’s lightweight UP and was initially nervous as he had never sailed a Marblehead before, having been successful racing IOMs.  He needn’t have worried as he got a good start in Race 1 and led to finish with a big lead in front of well-known dinghy sailor, Nigel Barrow and Barrie Martin both sailing a STARKERS.  James won Race 2 by an even bigger margin from David Cole sailing a GRUNGE followed by Nigel, who then went on to win Race 3 from Paul Tickner sailing a GRUNGE with James 3rd.  

The results were repeated in Race 4, but in Race 5 Paul came to the front with Nigel 2nd and David 3rd.  James had a technical problem in this race, but came back in Race 6 to win with Nigel 2nd and Bob Iles sailing a STARKERS 3rd having made a magnificent port tack start.  Nigel’s consistency gave him Race 7 in front of Bob Pearson sailing another STARKERS with James in 3rd place. The results were repeated in Race 8 and in the last race before lunch, Paul won from David and Nigel.  

The lunchtime leaderboard was headed by Nigel with 10 points from James & Paul each on 15.

The forecast sunshine never arrived, but after lunch the wind had a touch more westerly direction, which caused a more variable wind that got stronger in some of the gusts.  Enjoying the potential gain in tacking downwind with the swing rig, James was making the best of the extra pressure to keep UP planing for longer with the extra speed helping to win him both Races 10 and 11 from Nigel and Paul respectively.  Paul was also doing consistently better in the stronger wind and won Race 12 from Nigel and James, who with Barrie got the best start in Race 13 to win ahead of David and Barrie.  After some poor results, David finally hit the front to win Race 14 ahead of Bob Pearson and Paul, who went on to win Race 15.  The final race would decide the winner of the event and James finished with his 7th win to beat Nigel & Paul in both Race 16 and the event.  

At the prize giving James thanked Race Officer Roger Stollery for lending him his UP and for the team running the event, which he thought was great fun.  The next Marblehead GAMES event in Guildford’s special 3 event Summer Series is on 17 June for the new Halfpenny Trophy.

2023-04-02 Mermaid pic pages

Results:

1st James Hadden Gosport UP 24

2nd Nigel Barrow Frensham Pond STARKERS 26

3rd Paul Tickner Guildford GRUNGE 34

4th Bob Pearson Gosport STARKERS 56

5th David Cole Hampton Court GRUNGE 59 

6th Bob Iles Poole STARKERS 62

7th Barrie Martin London MYC STARKERS 66

8th Martin Crysell Guildford PRIME NUMBER 74

9th Mark Mortimore Guildford UPROAR 122

Winner of the Best Improver’s prize – Bob Pearson.

Winner of the Vic Cooney ‘Masters’ Trophy – Bob Iles

GAMES results after this event

1st Nigel Barrow 250.1

2nd Paul Tickner 230.6

3rd Roger Stollery 223.8

Dear All,

There were just 6 entries, but only 5 sailed as Mike pulled out at the last moment. The day was dull with no sun, but there was a light variable breeze from just east of South and occasional light drizzle.

14 races were sailed before 2 PM and Martin and Barrie dominated the winning places with 8 and 4 wins respectively. Other race winners included David Coode and Roger Stollery with one each. Roger was testing a newly refurbished BOTTLE boat 7 and was pleased with its performance, which could not be replicated with his own BOTTLE boat 4.

We had a break for an early lunch and then continued to race with the wind now coming either straight down the lake or from over the right shoulder on the western control area. There are some very fast and exciting runs with everyone in their A rigs under pressure at times. The fleet splits at the 2 blue gate marks no specific advantage from either on the beat and the result was was decided by who found the best route through the variable winds.

A very good mornings racing!

Cheers, Roger