South Bank Sailing Club Blog

Bevington Trophy race, 25 June 2017 A double-‘sausage’ course was laid, the first quite close to the line & the second at the mile post, both going across the river to take advantage of a good, if sometimes freakish, westerly. Nine boats took to the water & the race started just a few minutes late. Immediately it became obvious that boats would struggle against a relentless, fast tide that was higher than usual, even with reasonable wind. At times they seemed to move well & at other times to be absolutely stationary. Four boats failed to round the first buoy & were straightaway disqualified.   The remaining five boats fought a tiring, technical race.   The first lap took just over 24 minutes & the race was shortened from five to three laps. Renato was immediately in the lead, followed by Ben & Josh (Albacore), Stephanie (Laser radial), Johnny (Solo) & Amy (Laser radial).   So it remained until the last part of the third lap when Johnny got good wind & zi...

More than 10 boats started the race, that is a great achievement considering more than 10% of the members were in Greece on the sailing holiday. On the race box Serena was doing a great job assisted by Oscar who just needed an improvised bell extension to start the race: https://youtu.be/PXlkPo3qwuo   It is hard to tell but there could be a boat or two over the start line… no protest was made. There was a strong South Westerly wind and an initial triangular course was designed with the idea to have a long reach from the south bank to Fulham stadium. That was a total fail as no boat was able to round the second buoy located on the South bank due to the strong current. I couldn’t hear it from the distance but I could certainly feel the swearing at the RO while boat after boat tried to round the mark and had to gave up when the tide were pushing them back. Finally the buoy had to be removed and boats happily continue with the remaining two buoys. No harm done. There were lots o...

Bevington 4 Downriver The wind was 10 gusting 18, so the Bevington Downriver looked like a great Sunday sail. Hot on the heels of the AGM, we had an excellent turnout of 11 boats, including Johnny’s new Solo, which is nothing short of beautiful. He looked proud! The line up included: Steph & Allan and Miguel & Rita each in an Enterprise, Rex in the “Chelsea Harbour” Topper, Jamie and Renato each in a Laser, Jakob and Amy each in a Laser Radial, Ben & Sina in an Albacore, and Johnny, Sara and Andy Tasker each in a Solo. Sara’s Solo was a slightly different handicap to the others due to the sail size. The Race Committee consisted of Armand and Jim Forrest in the Safety Boat and Anne Hauger and Richard Graham in the Race Boat. Armand had a number of hats on though: Father to Rex, Topper Coach, Wind Guru, Ginger Beard Admirer and Safety Boat Engine Tester. We really need these all-rounders in times like these. We delayed the race start by 30 minutes as we realised the tide had ...