South Bank Sailing Club Blog

                                                                       Saturday 8th July 2023.                                                        Race Officer and Safety Boat: Jane S-H and Jon L. This modern stainless steel cup commemorates a former harbourmaster who tragically died of cancer. It was  first raced in 1967 and is awarded to the winner of the annual downriver race from Putney to County Hall and back.  This year the race was well fought, between two lasers (Elaine and Karin) and Enfin Enterprise (Matt and Peter van A).  The start was delayed as we waited for more wind, less rain and a clear l...

It was a blustery and challenging day with even the three greats - Allan, Renato and Jakob - straining their sinews.  Elspeth made a valiant effort, with erratic conditions proving challenging. She went over a couple of times but nimbly avoided going in herself, before deciding to call it a day. No honour lost there! You need exhausting technique to win, and win Renato did. Followed by Allan (after the handicap adjustment), with Jakob just behind. Sergio was my fantastic assistant, and made the whole thing a real pleasure. 

Campbell 5 – Downriver,  Sunday 16 th  October    Race Officers / SB1- Jane SH and Bruce R with help from Jane W Safety Boat 2- Ray and Toby S   The published wind speed of 5 knots appeared somewhat optimistic, when six boats began the downriver leg of Campbell 5. Despite trying to make the most of what wind there was, the initial leg was as much competitive drifting as sailing. Nonetheless, Jakob (Laser) made a good start and, by creating something out of nothing, maintained a solid lead throughout the first leg to the finish at Chelsea Reach. He was followed by Peter Mack (Solo), with a tight race between Sara (Solo) and Stephanie (Laser), who nudged ahead in the final seconds. They were followed by Alex (Laser), ahead of Tom G, paddling and waggling his Supernova to the finish.   The second leg was much more fun. The wind picked up and there was finally some decent sailing to be had. Once more, Jakob had a strong start and maintained his lead until the e...

Tim Young's report (Strand on the Green Vice Commodore) It was an overcast day with a distinct autumnal chill in the 5-6 knot WNW breeze: perfect for the planned B-course. Six boats came up river from South Bank: 3 Enterprises; a Laser; a Xenon, and a Merlin, together with an attendant safety boat. They beached on the slimy foreshore downstream of the railway bridge and made use of our sumptuous facilities, including tea and coffee. They were matched by nine Strand boats: James Armitage and Lev Kolobov in Enterprises, Rob Adams, Joseph Armitage and Keith Clarke in Lasers; Sam Shemtob’s Wayfarer; Ian Nethersell’s Vibe; Tim Young’s Wanderer and Nick Floyer’s Gull. The downwind start, against the flood tide, presented the choice of seeking the relatively slack water on either side of the river. 14 boats chose the Middlesex side and only one SBSC Enterprise (Allan Munro-Faure) chose the Surrey side. He was correct and rounded the downstream mark (at Chiswick Staithe) well ahead of the ...

The forecast 6 to 11mph SSW to S wind seemed lighter and more westerly in the event for the 2nd Campbell Series race, with the club flag at half mast.  After some excellent cake thanks to Elaine, 11 boats took to the water. Most were quickly swept to the wrong side of the start line by a strong spring tide which seemed to be carrying lots of debris including an entire tree.  Not an easy situation for the RO team, but we felt it best to get things underway and allow the rest of the fleet to start racing once passed by Renato and Jakob who had started from the correct side. Things improved significantly once the fleet reached the simple 2 buoy course, in the wind which had also picked up and in the lighter tide on the Fulham bank. It looked like an enjoyable sail. Jakob (Laser full) was first over the finish line after the 4 laps we’d eventually decided on, having well handled or been lucky with the shifty wind around the new Fulham stadium, followed a minute later by Renato (La...

  Sunday 21st August 2022. The last downriver race of the 2022 Bevington Trophy series promised to be a tactical affair with the forecast of 6 gusting 10 looking optimistic.  At least it was South Westerly wind giving the best chance of making use of what wind we did have.  With a small field of very capable sailors Race Officer Jane S-H decided we only needed one safety boat and planned to allow plenty of time by starting the race an hour before low tide at Battersea.  Setting off a little late Henry C led the field out in a Laser, closely followed by Allan in his Solo.  Initially Ellie and James C in the 420, Karin A and Ben R in the Enterprise, and Mike and Ang in the GP stayed in touch by edging down the Southern bank and negotiating paddle boarders, and moored boats to take advantage of any  width of the river they could find.  At Putney Bridge a seal snacking on an eel, looked on approvingly at the skill on display. As the wind became patch...

Sunday 7 th August 2022 RO and SB1- Jane SH and Sina, SB2- Alex D and Lucy A hot sunny Sunday late afternoon race with a forecast of NE wind 6 knots gusting 16. As usual quite changeable when on the water!. The competing sailors Elaine and Ellie (Lasers),  James, Jakob and Allan (Solos)… plus at RO’s discretion (a one-off) and with SB team support  Michael and his non sailor guest Karan in a trusty ENT. Sina provided delicious cupcakes for the race briefing enjoyed by us all. Perhaps a contributing factor to our keen sailors being rigged and ready to go when the start bell rang at 15:30. And off they sailed with some wind behind them.  A slow and steady race with James, Ellie, Allan and Jakob in contention.. then Allan found some wind and surged ahead. Then a call from SB 2 to say “no bung in the ENT”.. they couldn’t find the bung (pointed out afterwards) But luckily SB Lucy carries a supply of bungs  (!)  Hey presto the ENT set sail once more.. however as they...

Sunday 31st July 2022. As we arrived at the club, the wind was blowing a strong 20-knot northwesterly. A tricky course was proposed in view of the wind direction, favouring the controversial red rowing buoy as the windward mark in an arrangement of three buoys. Mutiny in the ranks prevailed, but the race officer and John Parke as assistant race officer were adamant and stuck to their guns in retaining the course proposed. ‘Sausage sailing’ – not on our watch! All raced in Lasers today, save James who was in his trusty red Solo. While Sara and Alex were in the safety boat, John and Andrew manned the race box. No sooner had the boats hit the water, than the wind completely dropped off. But we had a clean start, and Renato took a different tack to the rest of the sailors. It was very slow race at the beginning up to mark 2 (the controversial red rowing mark) as the wind completely dropped off. Had we chosen the right course? Had we set the correct number of laps? We would just have to let...

Sunday 24th July 2022 Today we set sail to start the downriver John Cope race. This consists of two races, one down river to about Battersea Park and the other from Battersea Park to SBSC. We started the first race with Peter just on the line, but Andrew, James and Jakob quickly caught up. Four minutes in, James was leading the race in his Solo, with Andrew and Jakob closely battling it out in their Lasers. It was quite a windy day so the whole way down favoured some incredible but difficult downwind sailing. Andrew, James and Jakob were neck and neck the whole way down, but James managed to seal the deal and take first place at the end of the first race. The race took about half an hour considering the favourable wind, so we had to wait about half an hour at Battersea Park before the tide turned. James and Jakob had the best start in the second race which started at 18:45 with Jakob heading the whole upwind leg back to SBSC. James, Andrew, and Peter closely followed. The exhaustion an...

Sunday 19th June 2022 A unique race in the Enterprise 2022 calendar. Perhaps the spiritual home of the boat’s designer, Jack Holt, who was born in Hammersmith. A single class one-design pursuit race? How does that even work? Borrowing heavily from the format of SBSC’s Ruby Bell race, we planned to make the most of our tidal location and use the tide as the variable allowing competitors to decide on their own start time. A unique twist. We would then record each boat’s start and finish time and calculate a winner with the shortest elapsed time. The course was simple. Sail downriver to a single mark, leave the mark to port and return to the start/finish line. We allowed a starting window of one hour after the standard warning and preparatory signals. Never has so much bell ringing produced such little activity. We waited. Start too early and you risk arriving at the mark too early and effectively park up trying to push the tide on the return leg. Leave too late and the tide will have tur...

The last weekend of May was chosen for our rare, day-long upriver sail to the London Apprentice in Isleworth. A healthy 9-20kts conveniently coming from the north provided plenty of wind for a Laser, two Xenons and a GP14. The weather was cool and intermittently shady; overall nearly perfect weather for the job. Once all the boats were on the beach we launched our GP14 first, and beating happily in the fresh north wind, we were almost around the corner before the remaining boats were off the beach! Waiting at Hammersmith for 10 minutes to keep the fleet together, we defended our lead as hard as we could. Safety crew Justin and Lucy escorted Peter and Jakob’s Xenons under the bridges. Patrick’s laser passed us midway; the Xenons were closing in on us when we arrived. State of the art onboard telemetry (a.k.a. a cracked iPhone running Strava in a dry-bag) shows the GP14 completed the trip in a comfortable 2 hours (3kts VMG) with a top speed of about 6 kts. We were joined for 3 pleasant ...

28th May, 2022. The Race on Saturday commenced in near perfect conditions, with a sunny blue sky studded with clouds and a northerly wind blowing at strength of 6 knots. The race itself followed a triangular course with it’s most northerly mark by the Crabtree pub and the finish line at the clubhouse, though the start line was located up river. After a smooth launch for all seven of our racers and the safety boat, the race commenced at 12.59 pm. It was initially hard for the race observers at the clubhouse to determine how the race would play out with all participants initially holding quite close together. However, by the end of the second lap Jakob Grunig had secured a clear lead with Allan Munro-Faure and Eleanor Hanning following close behind him. This was the leading order as the race entered its second lap, unfortunately at this point a large number of lasers from the Ranelagh sailing club entered the area. The result was that the centre of the river became a confused mass of sai...

Sunday 8th May 2022 Race Officer: Luis and Bruce R. Safety Boat: Fleur and Agnes It was a lovely early evening for the first Bevington race of the series with 14 sailors and 13 boats competing; 4 Solos, 1 420, 1 Laser Radial and 7 Lasers .  Guided by Alan, Renato and Jakob a daring 3-point course was set extending from the mile point upriver to the Putney moorings downstream, with a rather ambitious 5 lap target. The wind forecast was 6 knots gusting 9, E/SE and high water at 20:30. It took some time to get ready as the buoys had to be repositioned to make the course sufficiently large for the sailor’s aspirations. One yellow buoy seemed to drift so Agnes and Fleur removed it promptly and we resorted to the permanent red one. The race started at 18:17 with a downriver start, a novelty welcomed by the sailors. The first boat to complete the first lap was Renato’s laser in just under 20 minutes, with Jakob (Laser) at his heels. Allan, and James Channer were next in their solos, followed ...

May Day Race Report Sunday 1 st  May 2022 Race Officers: Jane S & Andrea S Safety Boat: Sina S & Manuel A The May Day Race 2022 was created today! Due to little wind, strong current and unequal starting conditions, the RO decided that this first race of the summer season would not be part of the Bevington trophy series. There was very little wind – SW 5 gusting 10 knots forecast – but just enough to race.  At the briefing the course was set as 5 x sausage laps and 1x triangle allowing the competitors to choose the order in which they completed the laps.   We also added the proviso that if the wind dropped we’d reduce the laps and ask the Sina and Manuel to the SB team to finish the race from the safety boat. The eager competitors: Lasers – Jane D, Elaine, Patrick, Mike, Marco, and Ellie. Solos – Allan MF and James C. The wind picked up just before the race began and our sailors were making good time to get on the water. But then some rowers blocked the ra...

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 ...

Sunday 13th February – Short fun races. RO Lucy and Jane SH SB 1 James F and Manuel, SB 2 Sara and Karin A Six boats rigged for a set of three short races locally, in a grey 16-30 kts and 7 celsius. The wind was consistently moderate throughout the morning, even though it was expected to increase towards lunchtime. The group took a bit longer getting on the water, presumably having second thoughts about the wind and how to go in (in pairs, or individually). Club double-hander boats were used, with Jakob and Renato sailing their own Lasers. James F and I got in the water early with the safety boat #1, dropping the buoys for the race. We ended up having to reset the buoys a couple of times to get the start line well aligned to a straight upwind start. We counted two Xenons, one Laser 13, one Enterprise and two Lasers. The wind was strong enough to provide some great sailing, emotional tacks and jibes, and some capsizes. The race started with a takeover of Renato over Jakob which det...

Sunday 16th January. Eleven boats rigged for a local race in a cool and calm 4-11 kts and 6 celsius. The wind was light, but the club flag was generally in motion, so the race was on. I kept a strict schedule for briefings and hurried the boats onto the rising tide. Jakob spotted a loose race mark, allowing Esteban and Josh time to wrestle it back into position as the countdown ran. My fears that nobody would be able to reach the start-line in such light wind were generally unfounded, with the unfortunate Joker an exception, accounting for its long first lap time. In retrospect, the tide was being kind, with several “rungs” left on the ramp by the end of the race. Able assistant Andrea and I attempted to take lap timings for each boat, mostly successfully; I made a mistake with Sara’s and Peter’s timings that I was unable to go back and correct. The lap timings show a familiar story – with the eventual top two sailors Allan and Jakob showing extremely consi...

Sunday 9th January The first sail of the year started well with the sun shining and a gentle westerly wind of 7-13kts promising a leisurely sail for the Southbank Sailing Club. Thirteen dinghies and two safety boats embarked upon the downriver race, starting from the club house and heading towards the Battersea Pagoda – a roundtrip measuring approximately 6.06 nautical miles. The plan for race one was to follow the pull of the outgoing tide towards Battersea and to then begin race two as the tide turned back up towards Putney. The initial stretch of the race, between the club house and Putney bridge started almost immediately as the tide pulled sailors away from the start line and a call had to be made to start the race from launch. From here the sailors made their way onwards, weaving under bridges and picking up speed as they sailed under Fulham railway bridge and towards Wandsworth bridge. Jakob and Henry were leading, with Sara and James hot on their heels. Under Wandsworth br...