South Bank Sailing Club Blog

Race Officers: Sara Bennett and Elena Balycheva Safety Boat: Tara Yamashita and Henry Cook If anyone asked me if I would prefer to be in the Race Box rather than out on the water I would say “you cannot be serious”. But yesterday was different and different in spades.. Having cancelled the downriver race earlier in the week, there didn’t seem to be any sign of decrease in the forecast wind strengths for Sunday and I wondered if anybody would be mad enough to even turn up for the local race around the buoys. Slowly but surely by about 1.45 seven of the club’s very best sailors turned up, as did the rest of the race team. As the wind whistled through the yard and the gusts whisked with scary regularity over the water, a plan was laid and Renato agreed to go out for 10 minutes on the water with the safety boat and see if he and they felt a race was doable for everyone. Tara and Henry in the safety boat fairly quickly contacted the Race Box to confirm that they all f...

Race Officers: Tim Bishop Safety Boat: Ray Burnett and Peter Mack The race having been moved from a morning downriver to an afternoon round-the-buoys because of the forecast high winds, I as acting RO set a port-hand 4 lap 3 buoy course. Cue much muttering, but for the forecast (SW 5 gusting 7, or 4 gusting 6, depending on which one you looked at) it seemed reasonable to me! Unfortunately . . the wind hadn’t looked at the forecast. The seven Lasers with varying rigs and one Albacore set off OK and got to the high-set first buoy fairly quickly, but were unable to sail across the river. The sailors agreed to restart the race at that point, reversing the course, but progress downstream for the small-rigged boats was slow, and it was clear that the race would have to be shortened. Matters were further complicated when I misunderstood a communication from the safety boat, so that three competitors set off on a 3rd lap which I thought the small-rigged boats would be unlikely to complete befo...

Race Officers: Jane Deith and Elena Balycheva Safety Boat: Steffan Ciccotti and Laurent Gustin A great turnout at the club for the 8th in the Campbell series. Twelve boats took to the water, perhaps a little disappointed the forecast strong winds hadn’t materialized. A triangle course was set. But with a southerly wind behind them the fleet set off for the first mark at a brisk pace. After crossing to the top mark on the north bank it was the customary weaving their way back towards Fulham FC. The race officer watched the fleet’s slow progress with alarm. Would we have to shorten the four laps to two? In the end we settled on three, and happily, the wind started to build – hopefully making it more fun for the sailors. Allan and Steph decided to go it alone on the south side of the river and it did them no harm, they completed the first lap not far behind Renato. Sara followed in third. Then Hugh and Ana. The pack was soon pretty spread out. Jonny in his Laser was following Hugh an...

Race Officers & SB1: Graham Douglas and Graham Bagnall Safety Boat 2: Digby Koe and Ollie Bennett Another day, another downriver race. Not much wind forecast and not much wind in evidence as a quorum gradually appeared in the lovely autumn sunshine. There was so little wind that the race officer was concerned he would be sending a fleet on a driftathon, which for the racers would have been frustrating and make a mockery of the handicapping. As they often say for the annual Round the Island race on a windless day a plastic crate could get round the course and win on handicap. The option of the venerable AP flag and a postponement is not possible with a tidal river race, so a consensus was arrived at. We would try for a race. We would consider shortening the course if the tide looked like changing before we reached our normal turning point and restart everybody for the return journey and aggregate the results in an attempt to keep the fleet together. Sun-cream and sail area were the ...

– Race Officers: Carla Caturri-Gispert and Victoria Grubb – Safety Boat: David Fletcher and Patrick Chardon If you were not down sailing on Sunday you missed one of the nicest days so far this autumn; mild temperatures, constant breeze and slight gusts. The Thames barriers had been closed at low tide around 11am meaning that there was not much water and the course needed to be laid in the middle of the river. A sausage course was decided to interfere the least with Ranelagh S.C. Victoria plus guest RO Henrik and myself sent off the boats. At the moment of the race start the safety boat manned by David and Patrick had laid the first buoy. Enough time to lay the second one, we thought, if the safety boat had not broken down!! Panic in the race box, mischief on the VHF and Henrik jumped on a club bike to join the stranded safety boat. A Barn Elms rowing safety was sent to rescue our rescue Henry and by the time the safety boat was changed the boats had wisely chosen to use one ...

Race Officers & SB1: John Parke and David Joo Safety Boat 2: Miguel and Rita Ferreira The Bernard Driver is our second oldest trophy race, it used to be held at the beginning of our winter series early in October to lead members back onto the water as the cold weather set in. It was inaugurated by Bernard Driver (Joe’s father) when he was Commodore and traditionally the course is set by the Commodore who tries to make it more interesting than usual. However on Sept 6 that was not to be. Windguru and the Met Office had been forecasting winds of 13-14 with gusts of up to 25 and that was not to be either, there was a light wind and the was right on the nose so that we considered postponing the start until the tide had slackened. We could not decide on the best side of the river and so laid four buys with the choice of coming down either bank and agreed helms what helms could do and how they would be scored if they could not make the start line in time. A lady from the Tideway Scu...

– Race Officers: Sally Pearce – Safety Boat : Dan Johnson and David Joo With a very variable weather report that had been threatening gale force winds and storms not unsurprisingly we had a minimal turnout for Sundays race. So few in fact that we at one point through we were going to have double the amount of safety cover than sailors. The great stalwart Steph and all the way from China the sadly missed Tom Glockner back to brave the Putney waters. Luckily Renato and Olga turned up and Renato selflessly offered to look after the kids to let Olga have a sail. The safety team made the decision that with so few sailors all of which were experienced we could reduce the safety boats to one and Richard Graham (safety boatman 4 ) would sail as well. With 4 boats we now had a race! Then the heavens opened. Race 1: All got off to a good start, but quickly Steph pulled away from the pack creating quite a gap. Tom pulled away as well and Olga and Richard were battling it out for 3rd pl...