News & Reports

It was a beautiful hot day and attracted 9 entries, but the wind was not as forecast with too much northerly and not enough easterly and it was frustratingly variable in strength.  We opted to sail from the south bank, which generally gave a windward leeward course, which was beneficially reset to the north-east wind after the lunch break..  There was much frustration particularly at the windward mark in the shadow of the trees, but 5 of the 8 competitors won races, with the eventual winner of the event, Barrie Martin, and Simon Collyer visiting from Alton Water both winning 4 races.

Simon Johnson, from Hampton Court and Simon Collyer were competing for the ROF, Roger’s 1 One gram Flag offered in the every Notice of Race for this series to be won by the leading visiting competitor.  Although only winning one race Simon Johnson was the most consistent finishing with score of 38 to finish 2nd in the event, whilst Simon Collyer after a brilliant start finished with a score of 46 to finish 4th in the event, as you can see from the scoresheet below. A few images were captured by Roger in Races 12 and 13 & Barrie at the prize giving.The club had planned a workparty to cut down some of the vegetation, but it was frankly too hot to consider this after the 14 races sailed by the 2 o’clock deadline and putting the dinghies & gear away in the clubhouse. We did inspect the west bank before the event and reckoned that this will be a problem if we had to sail the HALFPENNY Trophy from that control area. The promised grass cutting on the south bank hasn’t materialised and we will have to put up with rather long grass if we operate from south bank, which now appears likely.  This appears in Barrie’s photo of the lake on the pic page.

It was a disappointing entry of only 3 skippers for this event.

But you missed one of the best days sailing for a long time, when we started with a easy windward leeward course using the two blue buoys as the windward marks, at this stage the sun was shining and the wind was pretty much straight down the lake giving some great racing.

In fact after only race four each of the three skippers had won a race so it was all very competitive.

The wind did desert us a bit after race eight and start to do it’s usual comings and goings but we still had some close racing’ which we all enjoyed.

We sailed till 1.30pm which suited everybody and managed to sail a total of 16 races so we could all get our 3 discards.

Although the wind got a bit frustrating towards the end we all enjoyed a good days sailing.

Final nett finishing points were,

Martin Crysell 16

David Coode 25

Slieve McGilliard 31

Lets hope for a bigger entry for the next race on the 14^th June

Another superb morning at Abbey Meads!  The sun was shining and the north-easterly breeze was initially gentle, but increased later to allow some planing & ‘bows under’ off wind.  

This suited the A rigs on all 3 boats on the simple windward leeward course with the start marks also becoming the leeward gate, with a finish to windward between a mark specifically set for the DFs and an oak truck on the bank.  The potential entries did not materialise and they, like the other club Marbleheads, missed 12 races of some really good sailing.

The wind direction was variable and tested Mark, Martin and Roger to find the best course. As often happens at Abbey Meads a basically north-easterly wind could occasionally become north-westerly and sometimes in a blink of an eye automatically change your boat from one tack to another, without you having to touch the helm!  

Roger admitted that he was lucky on many occasions to be in the right place at the right time, but his UP was going well both ways and particularly off wind.  Mark had a new Dave Creed lightweight bulb beautifully finished onto his Creed fin and his UPROAR was going much better with more turning power, with the rudder angle up to 45° either side of centre.

Soon after lunch we decided to change boats and this led to some rig changes on Martin’s PRIME NUMBER, which helped the boat to be more eager to windward and set some more details to be sorted out in the workshop.  Mark was able to win the race with UP when Martin had to go and rescue Mark’s boat in the trees opposite.

Roger did take some photos but they were all overexposed as it is always difficult to see all the settings properly in the bright sunshine.  However they give a glimpse of what happened and some speed at the end…  Thanks to Mark!

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.