South Bank Sailing Club Blog

Sunday 23rd April – St George’s Day, the London Marathon and the French first round of their General Election process.   But all eyes at the club were focused on WindGuru and the very light southerly   wind which was on the menu for yes    terday’s race.   Ana, Hugh and Maya hadn’t seen the email about the later sailing time and had already got the safety boat and Race Box ready so that was a nice surprise for me! Considering the lack of wind, 10 boats rigged whilst Imogen and I sorted out the race sheet and getting people to sign on, whilst mutterings under the Race Box from Josh and some of the others   about whether to sail or not wafted up to us.   In the end both he and Joseph decided not to go out and judging from the scenes later, their decision was a good one……!   Imogen drew the Sausage within a Sausage course on the board for the briefing   (a new nautical term created yesterday….) and optimistically told the racers they would be doing...

Easter Sunday 16th April:Goodwin 12 Downriver race with club open at 10AM The race team: in safety boat 1 Race Officer Paul Elliott with ‘mini me’ son Joshua and Jane S-H. In safety boat 2 (and in charge of safety) Armand ably assisted by new member Elli Sallie (joined after the recent taster sailing event). On this bright but chilly Easter morning, nine sailors competed in 8 boats⛵️: VC Sara in her Solo, Ben helming in his Albacore with crew Sina, Andrea and Amy in Lasers with Radial sails and Johnny, Joao, Josh and Renato in Lasers with full sails. Paul and Armand briefed the sailors and everyone set about getting the boats down to the beach in record time! Well done! At 11.15 the race was started from the beach –   Winds NW-W gusting 10mph- with Renato leading the way to Putney Bridge in 8 minutes and Josh doing his best to catch up. On the way we passed some canoeists, pleasure boats and a dredger on manoevres.. Armand and Elli dropped the buoy near Battersea park...

This Saturday saw a huge turnout for potential new members as well as an abundance of helms eager to help out. I’m sure the wonderful weather and the sight of my pasty bare legs helped to get people out of their living rooms! Even though there was a light wind everyone still had fun/caught the sun a little too much. I beleive 5 new members were recruited and I have a feeling more will follow shortly. Thanks to everyone who turned up to help in some way. We continue to grow ever stronger as a club and it’s all because of the effort everyone puts in. GO S.B.S.C!! Thanks to Sina for the photos. J x  

12 boats lined up for Goodwin 11 today, being one Enterprise, one Albacore, two Solos and the remainder being lasers (all with full rigs).        Goodwin 11 was sailed today in 11 knots, gusting to 15 at times. With a Southerly, the typical three-buoy course was set, meaning running and reaching with the tide then slogging up the leeward Northern bank of the Thames from the old jetty remains to Craven Cottage wendyball grounds. Crews voiced concern about the ability of boats to achieve that slog to the top mark given the lightness of the wind and the weakness of the tidal relief along the leeward bank, and pleaded for a delay. It was decided to send Jamie across to the leeward bank to test the ability of boats to go to windward, and other boats should have launched at this point and waited down river (up tide) of the start line. However, by not doing so and then waiting for the trailer of the preceding boat to be brought up the centre of the ramp (rather than launching in close forma...