South Bank Sailing Club Blog

I arrived at the club a few minutes late on Sunday 14th to find a pleasantly surprising number of boats already out of the yard; some credited this to my dire warnings by email the day before, but personally I think that would be overestimating my influence over the sailors. 3.45pm is quite a late start for a downriver so I experimented with launching the two safety boats by winch (with mixed success; it does require fewer people, but takes just as long) and tried to fix my mistakes as fast as I could, eventually starting the race ten minutes late at 15:56. The brisk southerly wind made for a good upwind start, if a challenging launch for the less experienced crews; I’m led to believe James Channer got off to a great start in a Solo, and I know for sure he was first over the line at Battersea. The brisk wind plus a gentle ebb helped the fleet make it to Battersea in an average of just under an hour (a little over 3kts VMG, James leading with a strong 3.9) We got our phones out dur...

Sunday 6th March. Despite the forecast and the sunshine, the weather was Baltic – much colder than it seemed and a wind with attitude! Blowing pretty stiff and sort of from the North, but changeable and blustery – easily enough to catch the unwary. There were murmurs that the safety boat might have a busy day! Allan the sage advised on a triangle course and (to some minds optimistically) suggested 7 laps as everyone would race quickly  – if the fleet spent most of the time climbing back out of the water, we could always shorten it. (Allan also suggested that being 7, it would be an extra challenge for the sailors to remember how many laps they’d done!) The briefing included clear instructions on how any shortening of the race would be communicated through sirens and horn blasts. We were prepared for the worst! Nine hardy and intrepid sailors prepared for racing, while new member Nigel, (with Jane S-H as experienced crew) decided to re-acquaint himself with the joys of Enterprise sailin...

I hadn’t been intending to come to the boat club supper this year. It was largely due to the fact that I hadn’t really been sailing and it felt a bit fraudulent. However, it was really lovely to be prodded by Sarah the Vice, and so Emma and I bicycled down. When we arrived we’d missed the early evening exchanges, which by the look of the photos involved some lovely drinks during a beautiful sunset after a lazy sail to the pub. Sounded pretty marvellous to me. Everyone was in good form. It was great to see Allan, Steff, Jane and Sara, and lots of other old friends – and newer faces.   The meal was of course outstanding. Not quite sure how Stefan manages to carry it off year after year. What an interesting and industrious character he is, I wish I could cook like him. I was pretty full after the salmon, but the calves liver or whatever it was for the main course was pretty astonishing and the lemon dish a delightful finisher. As the red wine flowed, excellent conversations were had ...