South Bank Sailing Club Blog

Sunday 28th May was set fair…but still. I mean STILL. Still…six boats were rigged by sailors who laughed in the face of the non-existent breeze. Allan & Steph, Sara, Tom, Cristina, Sally & Amy crossed the line for the downriver race. It was less sailing than drifting.  Sally provided the only excitement by angling her sail so high to catch a whiff of wind that she fell out the back of the boat! We put an end to everyone’s misery by laying an early mark, beached and decided to wait for the tide to turn at The Ship. None of us had any cash or card, except Josh, who very trustingly let us buy a jug of Pimms on his card (for he’s a jolly good fellow…!). We did attract some curious looks from the very polished men and ladies at the pub as we clambered over the gate in our sailing gear, bringing just a whiff of the Thames with us. The Only Way is Southbank meets The Only Way is Wandsworth. When the tide turned thankfully there was actually some wind in pl...

It was Sunday 21 st of May, a downriver Bevington, the jewel in the crown of the SBSC series. In the northern parlance it was literally “cracking the flags” with 9-11 mph winds in a toasty 24 degrees centigrade. Some might say perfect weather to go boating. The initial pre-race drama only added to the excitement with John P agreeing to step in to the empty race officer role at late notice, the commodore going missing to sort out the garage as well 13 boats getting ready to launching for the race. The Competitors were… In lasers: Renato, Johnny, Jane D, Henry C, Sally, Hannah and Tom G trying out a tiny 8.1 sail. In Solos: Sara, Andy T, Digby In the Enterprise: Allan & Steph, In the Topper: Henry K With the inevitable delay the bell was rung at approximately 4pm and the race was on! In a strange turn up for the books and totally against form Renato led the race through Putney Bridge, ably followed by the late launching Enterprise and the queen of vice in her Solo. The other la...

Sunday was a lovely day out at SBSC. The weather was rather cold and cloudy. The wind speed was apparently 4 knots. Unlucky for some, thirteen boats (possibly 14/15 boats but it’s now Wednesday and a lot has happened since Sunday morning)   were soon quickly rigged out on the tow path and raring to go. It was decided to have a course that involved two gates. One at the Crabtree and one closer to home. The only thing you had to do was go between the two buoys at each end of the rectangle. Not rocket   science. The start went without a hitch which is always a relief as race officer. The boats sped off towards the Crabtree. It was very difficult to make sense of what was happening at the top gate so we had to be patient, make a coffee and wait for the fleet to return to the bottom gate. There was a little bit of argy bargy between the Albacore and the two lasers sailed by Renato and Miguel. Miguel had not sailed a laser for 15 years so was feeling a little rusty. The rest of the happ...

Looks good doesn’t it? A slice of what you’re missing if you don’t join in the fun of Saturday sailing and the impromptu barbecues and pud that often follow. On Saturday 13th May a happy bunch of sailors took advantage of sunny temperatures and nice winds to mess about on the river. Armand came over all swallows and amazons and took his wee red boat out onto the water. Very pretty it looked too. Later Tom fired up the barbecue and did us proud –  and Emma Koe’s talented friend Lottie served up a cake with lashings and lashings of cream. Another lovely day which shows what a great place we have here. Jane

To mark John Parke’s recent birthday we asked him to write about his long membership of our club. Who can believe at one point we nearly merged with Ranelagh!    The club was originally part of the London County Council sports club and I was allowed to join it about 45 years ago because Wendy was teaching for the ILEA. We sailed only Enterprises and GP14s then. Some Lasers trickled in but the Old Guard insisted that they carried anchors and they left in a huff. When I first joined we usually got about 8 boats on the water and 12 for the Cope but Thatcher abolished the London Council and our membership fell to the point when we only got 2-4 boats out and we seriously discussed amalgamation with Ranelagh. We were rescued by the 5 th Cavalry in the shape of Ian Malcolm, Chris Philips, Jeremy Khan, Allan and Sara. The rotten boats were thrown out and Chris led a massive yard tidy up, Ian and Jeremy repaired club boats, Allan a property man, took on the renegotiation of our lease...

This past Sunday morning the weather was actually fairly pleasant with sunny skies and a respectable temperature just around rigging time.   But, a bank holiday weekend possibly kept numbers down, and so we had five boats ready to race for the latest Goodwin down river.   The boat roster consisted of three lasers (Johnny Lyell in a Radial, Jane Deith and Andy G. in 4.7’s) a 420 single handed by Graham Douglas and last but not least the mighty Albacore helmed by Ben and aided by new crew Elle. The breeze was coming from a southeasterly to southerly direction at 14 knots with gusts reaching 22 knots.   Plenty of wind to make things interesting it seemed, and as it turned out, plenty of wind oscillations to make the sailors lives even more demanding.  The upwind start saw Graham in the 420 hit the line spot on time with speed, Johnny second, and Andy G. lagging a bit in 3rd.   Jane had to beach her laser on the Craven Cottage bank to fix a rigging issue (turned out to be costly), and Ben ...

“May Day Albacor-off No Handicap open invite special” The rules were: No handicap All classes valid 2 laps (or as many as Josh, Digby and Jane could be bothered with) And that was it. Basically no holds barred racing. Due to the extreme nature of the event many of the clubs more vaunted sailors were too scared to take part. Jamie came down and remarked ” Are you crazy! Racing such as this is an unnatural act! Only god can sanction such reckless behaviour!”. The most recent series winners Allan, Steph, Renato, johnny and Amy were invited… Sadly all declined coming up with thin excuses such as houses, babies, gardening, and being fabulous. The race was fought over 2 laps of a sausage from Craven cottage to Crabtree with several hardy sailors taking part. The no handicap rule threw up some interesting combinations to try and exploit the steady 12mph winds with virtually every boat choosing to be a double hander. The crews were: Henry and Thomas in a topper Ele...