South Bank Sailing Club Blog

22nd August 2021 In the race box: Joseph Cabon On the safety boat: Sara Bennett & Allan Munro-Faure A three-buoy, double-sausage five-lap course was laid, taking   advantage of a good NW wind, 6-13 mph, hoping to both challenge & interest the sailors. From the start Renato took the lead and, apart from one instance, stayed ahead of the field.    That one occasion was on the first lap at the second buoy, when all boats congregated and appeared to struggle to round it.    How the stretch of time seems to expand when looking at stationary boats through binoculars!    From the race box it seemed they were stuck for ten or twelve minutes, when in fact it was probably less than five.    A change of course was considered, but just then, one by one, the boats managed to round the buoy and the race continued as planned. The closest racing was between three Lasers in second to fourth place on the water.    There were times when a small rug could have covered all three, so close were they...

Sunday 8 th  August 2021 Race Officer: Jane S-H with valuable assistance from Elaine Safety Boat: Gary & Kev It was a warmish cloudy day with SW winds 12 gusting 23knots forecast. We waited for sailors to arrive and checked the winds again before setting a triangle course of 5 laps. We had 5 boats competing; Laser rad (Henry), Xenon (Eric and Ben Roost), Solo (Allan), Solo (Peter)and Merlin (Andrew M and guest Carlos). The race was started at 14.17 once all boats were on the water and they took off to the sounds of Fulham Football club fans’ singing and chanting. http://southbanksailingclub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/b965c81b-3769-484f-97b1-b98aa16a10d4.mp4 The Sun came out at 14.29 and all looked beautiful as we watched the two solos and the laser raced around the course vying for first place with the Xenon behind them. Alas the Merlin had to retire early because of problems needing urgent repairs. At 14.59 Henry was first to cross the finish line with Allan only 7 seconds b...

Bevington Downriver Series Race 7: 4 July 2021 There was a promising wind forecast for the 7 th  Bevington Downriver Series and we had six sailors looking for victory. In the Race Officer Boat, we had Joseph Cabon and myself (Richard Graham), and in the Safety Boat we had Kevin Heydenrych and Ernst Koch. We had Renato and James Channer in the full-rigged Lasers, and Ellie Hanning, Eric Morgan and Miles (a temporary member) in Laser Radials. Last, and by no means least, we had Peter Mack in a very smart refurbished Solo. With the tide turning at 17:00, we started the race once the boats were in the water at 16:28. We had hoped this would at least allow a Pagoda trip and back, but this didn’t happen as the promising wind seemed to change its mind into a light and inconsistent breeze. We were in for all weather types, with the exclusion of snow. By the five minute bell, Peter Mack in his solo had managed to place himself in a very smart port tack to cross the line first. Renato, on the st...

Sunday 1st August. The Ruby Bell. So called because it is a race that was first sailed to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the club in 1992 and a trophy that is a campanologist’s delight. What are we going to do for the 70th next year? A Platinum pagoda perhaps. This is a tricky race at the best of times. No levelling of the playing field with a start time. Straight down the river and back balancing the wind and avoiding pushing a foul tide. May the best calculator win. Armed only with an imperfect prediction of when the tide would turn at Chelsea Bridge sailors can choose when to start to maximise their chances. Would the recent rain from Storm Evert change the calculus, Nine people showed a keeness that the breeze was not sharing. Time and tide, as we all know, will wait for no-one. With very little wind disturbing the water’s surface and as the possible start window opened at 13:30 there were only the two boats floating. Both of them were orange with engines. By 14:00 Jane, the R...

Sunday 20th June – John Cope Cup downriver race  Race Officer /SB1    Jane SH and Luis (new member)  Safety Boat 2   Mike and Angela  We had a great turnout of 11 boats and keen competitors for this downriver race –  6 full-rigged Lasers with John B, James C, Henry, Renato, new member Dan and Dec (Seb’s guest); Sara, Peter and Seb in Solos; Chris in his Streaker and Andrew and a nervous Nina in their new Merlin. The weather was cloudy, 19c dropping to 15c,  WSW (sse) 8 gusting 17-14 mph. Because of the lighter winds forecast we decided that instead of running a continuous race we’d revert to the usual 2-leg race format sailing downriver to Chelsea and back.  Before the race started Mike and Angela drifted 100m downriver unable to start the SB’s engine so they paddled back to shore to get some technical advice from Renato! John B missed the start and had to regain the start line which put him some way behind. But by Battersea bridge he and Sara were neck and neck. Right after Putney Bri...

Sunday 15th May. We had a good turnout of 6 sailors for the downriver race on Sunday –  5 Lasers, with Renato, James, Jakob and Seb with Laser Full rigs and Ellie on her first downriver race with a Radial, together with Peter in a Solo. Jane was in charge with Kev as her assistant and John B and I in the second safety boat with his twins, Celeste and Thalia, who both had a turn at driving the boat after Race 2 had started  – new talent for the safety boat! All seemed to be going well until we tried to get Henry the Rigiflex to start, and then we had a fast and furious rushing round with different battery and WD40 trying to get the Down button for the prop to work, but no joy.  We quickly came to the conclusion we needed to try James, the other 4m Rigiflex, so with more battery swaps and a lot of crossed fingers, bingo, we had lift off!  Thank goodness for John, Kev and Seb  – my contribution was luckily confined to finding the spanners….. Eventually we got sorted...

Sunday 9th May. Race Officer:  Joseph Safety boat:  Esteban & Sara With wind from SSW at 13mph gusting 25mph, three buoys were laid in a line on the Fulham bank.  The race was to be five laps, with a sausage between the first & second buoys. Seven boats took to the water, six Lasers & a Solo.  All Lasers were with either 4.7 or radial sails. The boats took only a couple of minutes to reach the buoys, then began the long & tricky beating back against wind & tide.  Nine boats from Ranelagh came along to sail in virtually the same water.  In the flurry of sails it was difficult at times to distinguish which sail belonged to which club.  After about 16 minutes Renato rounded to complete the first lap, followed by Henry, Peter, Jane, Ellie, Gary & Chris.  The race was shortened to four laps.  And it was the same order at the end of the second lap.  As the last loop started the only change was that Gary had overtaken Ellie.  Then a puzzling thing happened.  Renato, Pe...