South Bank Sailing Club Blog

Henry Koe sails off with silver at the London Youth Games! Henry, member of the Koe family sailing dynasty, has come back with a silver medal in the London Youth Games. He took his Topper 4.2 out on the notoriously windy Queen Mary Reservoir for six races (sounds exhausting!). He put a poor start in the first race behind him  to come second and first in the next two races. From then on Henry was never out of the top three. The strong winds in the morning fell away in the afternoon – proving Henry can sail in all conditions. Henry sails at Southbank (sometimes allowing dad Digby to crew!) when he can. We’d like to say we taught him everything he knows. But I think before long he’ll be teaching us. From everyone at Southbank, well done Henry!

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The race down was a little bit changeable with light winds and the leading group soon stretched a decent lead before wandsworth bridge. Our renato was well up leading together the xenon helmed by elaine with tom as crew. Sam was pushing into the group with a good turnout from Amy Joe Joseph Sara and Henry all having good sail.  The way back was a more straightforward beat which at times felt quite strong while Steph and I led for half the way back this came to an abrupt end caused by a big submerged rock which stopped us dead(or maybe we should have been further away from the bank!).  Two lasers slipped by Renato with Phil Robin then Hugh then another laser. We got started again but couldn’t make up the ground. The fleet spread out quite a bit on the return leg with SBSC members  dotted throughout the rankings. Overall Renato took the winners honours so well done. Everyone pulled together with the catering with Emma taking command assisted by th...

Arriving at Southbank Sailing Club for the Enterprise 60th Anniversary Tideway Race, the first question was – which way does the race go? With a very light breeze, occasionally dropping to nothing, and then deciding to change direction, the only way is with the tide, and suddenly the race direction is obvious. The race briefing includes some excellent advice on starting technique – you can paddle to keep yourself behind the line, or launch from the bank at the start of the race, drop anchor or hitch a lift on a passing boat, but once the start bell is rung, its drifting with style – or so we thought. The race travels with the tide for as far as it can get before the tide changes, then turns around and a second start takes place. The combined time of the first and second legs is added together to get your aggregated time, and race position. When the five minute gun goes there were a number of techniques to ensure there was no one over the line. It quickly became evident...