South Bank Sailing Club Blog

Sunday 21st November. The first emotion I felt when I looked at Windguru on Sunday morning was envy … 12 gusting to 20 Knots with a 0° wind direction. A “True Northerly.” Wind conditions such as these do not get much better for our little stretch of the river for sailing or racing for that matter. A square course with wind aplenty and lots of tacking upwind, and gybing downwind.  And a glorious reach leg.   9° Centigrade temperature  … not bad. Moments of melancholy and tiny feelings of rage ensued and passed quickly. Very emotional times.  I jot it all down in the note pad for the monthly Zoom call with the analyst.  You see, it was not 48 hours previously, after bumping into our very positive and comprehensive Club Secretary Jane S-H on the towpath in front of London Rowing Club, that I actually volunteered for the duty for this Sunday.  There was a last minute vacancy it seems.   I had been M.I.A. on the duty front as the wife and I had been marooned in sunny Southern California for...

Sunday 7th November, 2021. Seven sailors made it to the start line on a mild and sunny November morning (an unfortunate gear failure on launching forced John to retire immediately). The wind was light and fickle in the vicinity of the line; at the one minute gun about half the fleet had been swept the wrong side of the line. A helpful puff enabled everyone bar Peter in a solo to get to the proper side and make a clean start. Peter fought valiantly for two minutes to reach the line before the race officers gave him leave to continue. The first leg started as a run under the Putney bridges. Initially the fleet were tightly grouped apart from the severely trailing solo. By Wandsworth bridge Renato and Jakob had eeked out a small lead but a wind hole in the lee of a block of flats resulted in an effective re-start for Renato, Jakob, Alan and Henry in the lasers and Tom in the Supernova. Out of the wind shadow and the sailors were hanging on by their toes on a fast planning reach straight i...