South Bank Sailing Club Blog

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Sunday 17th October 2021. Despite a gentle neap tide, a becalmed start to the day had the sailors and race team standing around hoping for an hour, before springing into action when the telltales in the yard hinted that wind was coming. ARO Patrick was pressganged onto the safety boat to replace a sick SBA, nine dinghies launched and immediately started drifting astern in the lee of the south bank. With an hour until predicted high water and nobody reaching the start line, the race start was hastily delegated to Renato and Patrick, who led the fleet into rougher waters and started a 7-and-a-half-lap sausage up the far bank. Jakob, as is often the case, set the fastest pace, but the other sailors refused to be left too far behind, in particular Henry and James in Lasers, and Allan and Sara in Solos. To prevent disputes over lap counts, RO Mike defined the “lap end” line in advance, and enumerated the leader’s lap count with a distant c...

26th September 2021 Race Officers: Luis Quiroga & Isabelle Duff SB: Sina Stapelfeldt & Dan Bignold Surprisingly mild and bright conditions greeted our competitors. After a less than decisive start, when the race officers showed enormous benevolence in allowing some sailors to start despite not being quite over the line, things got underway. The hitherto chosen triangle shape was dropped in favour of a sausage, this shape and gusty conditions not without its challenges for all our sailors, even for Renato, who almost came a cropper with the Thames but managed to dry capsize. Renato set the pace and was round the buoys very quickly, this speed only dwindling at the very end, when a dearth of wind added precious seconds and minutes. Renato was first over the line at 0.36.27, followed shortly after by Jakob who had no such troubles with the wind and glided past the clubhouse. Alan came next hot on Jakob’s tail, but spare a thought for James who was extremely unlucky; the wind ...