South Bank Sailing Club Blog

The wind and weather reports for the Goodwin Race 4 promised a very feisty day for this downriver. When the club opened it was wet, but the wind actually wasn’t particularly threatening. Within the hour we had six lasers and one enterprise. The lasers were for Renato, Steph, Jamie, Henry, Sally and Tara. The enterprise was for Allan and his excellent crew Ollie. This was my first time as race officer, as the previous opportunity for my long sought after promotion was cancelled for visibility reasons. I was accompanied in the safety boat “Ginger Boat 1” by Justin – we have a similar level of experience in running races, but were confident we could triumph with an appropriate level of life-coaching. The rest of the racing committee took out the other safety boat “Ginger Boat 2”, which comprised of stand-in heros John Parke and Sara. As the rigging progressed, so did the wind and the laser sailors took every opportunity to confuse us by switching sails. Full r...

Sunny, an air temp of about 15deg, and a light SW’er with occasional gusts that an Enterprise would find “interesting” but strong enough to roll an unwary Laser, in short John’s weather, so of course I was in the office. Some fancy footwork switched Allan into the safety boat, Stephanie into her Laser and left a surplus unrigged Laser on the towpath which threw doubts on the signing on sheet. When 7 minutes before the start, the buoys still had not been laid all became clear and the General Secretary started shouting at the Commodore. However and as the Gen. Sec. should have known, buoy A was in position before Blue Peter came down and the fleet of only six boats got away smoothly on the usual triangular course. All boats were close together at the Hammersmith mark but on the slow beat down the Fulham bank Stephanie representing the Ukraine, pulled ahead and stayed there. At the end of lap1 it was Stephanie, Sara (actually in the lead on handicap) then Olga. Tara was paying the price f...

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″] [/vc_column][/vc_row]

Race officer: Joseph Cabon Safety boat: Andrew Bates This is the story of a race that wasn’t a race. Four of us sat in the clubhouse staring out at the rain & listening to the wind, occasionally gusting at up to 35kms/hr, and wondering who would turn up. We were expecting Andrew but were unsure if anyone else would appear. The series race was cancelled, but it was still possible to have a fun blast around buoys. Andrew arrived, and, with two people in the safety boat, a race of sorts could be run. A two-lap, three-buoy course was set. Two boats made it out onto the water; an Enterprise with Allan and Stephanie, and Sara in her Solo. With the wind constantly strong from the SSE, we expected it would be over in 15-20 minutes. Sara capsized at the very start, before crossing the line, and was swept quickly away by the tide, and, avoiding moored boats and rafts, wasn’t fully recovered until just short of Fulham Railway Bridge. She was towed back to the clubhouse. Meanwhile, Allan and S...