South Bank Sailing Club Blog

Goodwin Series Race 12   When you are given the opportunity to pick the date of your sailing duty, you are fairly certain that Sunday 14 April 2019 would be a warm and sunny spring day. We did indeed see the sun, but there was a very cold (and moderately strong) Easterly wind, which meant that Race Officer Boat and Safety Boat duties required full ski attire. In the Race Officer Boat we had Polly Haile and myself, and in the Safety Boat we had Daniel Barker and his Duke of Edinburgh Silver award-deserving son James. The turnout was great. We had Jakob, Henry, Peter Mack and Jaime in the full-rigged Lasers, Jane and Sally in Laser Radials, Sara in her Solo and Allan & Steph in the Enterprise. The club was also full of grandparents, helpers and powerboat specialists. We planned the race as per the usual format. A race downriver as far as we could get, taking into account the competing priorities between the time the tide turns and the amount of SBSC delay we could accumulate befo...

By Sara Bennett It’s quite extraordinary how the years rush by and one can suddenly reach yet another significant age virtually without realising it,  which I seem to have done at the beginning of April. One of the most important things in my life over the time I’ve been a member – for pretty well 20 years now  – is this crazy wonderful brilliant club we call South Bank.  It has brought me things I could never have dreamt of; great new friends over the years, sailing on a river where the wind changes on the throw of a dice, but probably most of all the continuity of being involved with something which I’ve seen grow and flourish with people coming and going but all of them having a love of this great club. Jane SH and Elaine very kindly organised that the club should buy me a cherry tree for my garden, which as you can see from the photo below is now flowering and will hopefully bring me a cherry or two this summer. Very many thanks from me to everyone for this lovely presen...

It was a busy day on the river because of the rowing 8’s Head of River Race.     This meant we had to get our boats off the water by noon so RO set a triangular course with only 4 laps. The wind was ENE 12 mph gusting 19.   Our three racers took Lasers; Renato and Henry C with full sails and Leo a  Radial sail. The RO’s Jane SH and Rob H had a clear view from the warm race-box and Elaine and Roland looking after safety on the water.     Race start 10.31.00 Lap 1 Renato was in lead from start and completed the first  lap in 10.43.39, followed closely by Henry and Leo. LAP 2 Renato had built a substantial lead clocking 10.5.48, with Leo and Henry following in 10.53.48. Lap 3 Renato increased his lead at 11.01 28,  Henry 11.04.28 and Leo at11.05.40 Lap 4 Renato was way ahead and .. yes … the race winner! Race results with corrected times: Renato 11.10.47 2 Henry   11.15.43 3 Leo       11.17.21. Rob Haddock