South Bank Sailing Club Blog

– Race Officers: Digby Koe and Emily Cardno – Safety Boat: Ray Burnett and Paul Waliker Last Sunday’s race had a surprisingly good turnout after the end of year supper; 10 boats on the water and not a hangover in site. It was not a day on the water for the faint hearted. Even as I bicycled to the river I wondered at who would be mad enough to sail in such freezing weather, with the wind whip cracking gusts across a sky as grey as a Siberian winter. I started on safety boat duty and was comforting myself that notwithstanding that I would probably freeze my toes off, I’d be able to listen to Ray’s stories of zombie butlers and other tales of acting, theatrics and ex wives. However, given the choice of doing race officer duties inside with the lovely Emily, I took it. The Met office told us that the wind was from the North, a steady 20 miles per hour, gusting 40. That seemed accurate much of the time, with an occasional lull. As we hurried to start the race, there were 6 ...

– Race Officers & SB1: Sally Pearce – Safety Boat 2: Anita Marijetic and Ana Tam / Hugh Spalding Last Sunday’s race had a surprisingly good turnout after the end of year supper; 10 boats on the water and not a hangover in site. Very cold, light winds but with a rumour that the breeze was going to pick up it was looking to be truly be a race of two halves. Unfortunately Joe and Andrea were over the line at the start, a suicidal error on Putney waters, with the tide against them to get back over that start line meant they were out of the game. The rest of the fleet had a gentle downwind race Renato finishing first, with Tara and Steph just seconds behind, then Carla and Sina on the 420, with Alan 5th over line, (What a turn up!), Jane Deith followed soon after Ana then Sara, (of course with that Handicap this may prove to be deceptive) and poor old Joe and Andrea trying desperately to make up for that bad start. The wind started to pick up, a quick sausage race which...

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– Race Officers: Mark Fossick and Sophie Henwood – Safety Boat: Tara Yamashita and Dominic Saul The Sunday race had a very early start time; 8:30am at the clubhouse no less. It was also very, very cold. Cold and early! Despite the cold, early start, seven SBSC sailors arrived at the clubhouse, dressed for the cold weather. Most of them looked like they’d covered themselves in glue and bounced around an Ellis Brigham shop for half an hour. All apart from the ever-stylish Allan whose mink coat and Ushanka hat were set off well against his red and white blue drysuit. There was also no wind either. At this point there was a polite discussion about the scope of options open to a race officer in these adverse conditions. “Going back to bed” apparently not being one of them. At 10:30am there was some wind coming from the north and a 5 lap race was initiated. This meant lots of tacking up-river but a run going down-river again. A “gate” layout of 4 buoy...