South Bank Sailing Club Blog

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...

Sunday 5th December 2021. What do you do on a cold wet miserable Sunday, apart from snuggling under a warm blanket with a glass of wine, watching the telly ? Go sailing at Southbank of course !  That’s exactly what nine members and eight supporters did – and great fun was had by all. The Glamorous Grandmas in the safety boat looked after everyone on the water. Nine intrepid sailors took part in eight boats:-  GP, six lasers and Solo. There was a strong steady mainly northerly wind allowing for a triangular course with the first buoy on the Surrey Bank, the second across the river near Crabtree and the third in front of the white flats just up from Fulham football ground. They were asked to do 5 laps but all, apart from Renato, who had to retire because his downhaul snapped, decided that 6 was better. Hey ho, what do the Race Officers know? Three of the lasers (Renato, Sally and Michael) and Solo (James) led from the start. Nevertheless, on each lap there were lots of changing posi...

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...

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Sunday 17th October 2021. Despite a gentle neap tide, a becalmed start to the day had the sailors and race team standing around hoping for an hour, before springing into action when the telltales in the yard hinted that wind was coming. ARO Patrick was pressganged onto the safety boat to replace a sick SBA, nine dinghies launched and immediately started drifting astern in the lee of the south bank. With an hour until predicted high water and nobody reaching the start line, the race start was hastily delegated to Renato and Patrick, who led the fleet into rougher waters and started a 7-and-a-half-lap sausage up the far bank. Jakob, as is often the case, set the fastest pace, but the other sailors refused to be left too far behind, in particular Henry and James in Lasers, and Allan and Sara in Solos. To prevent disputes over lap counts, RO Mike defined the “lap end” line in advance, and enumerated the leader’s lap count with a distant c...

26th September 2021 Race Officers: Luis Quiroga & Isabelle Duff SB: Sina Stapelfeldt & Dan Bignold Surprisingly mild and bright conditions greeted our competitors. After a less than decisive start, when the race officers showed enormous benevolence in allowing some sailors to start despite not being quite over the line, things got underway. The hitherto chosen triangle shape was dropped in favour of a sausage, this shape and gusty conditions not without its challenges for all our sailors, even for Renato, who almost came a cropper with the Thames but managed to dry capsize. Renato set the pace and was round the buoys very quickly, this speed only dwindling at the very end, when a dearth of wind added precious seconds and minutes. Renato was first over the line at 0.36.27, followed shortly after by Jakob who had no such troubles with the wind and glided past the clubhouse. Alan came next hot on Jakob’s tail, but spare a thought for James who was extremely unlucky; the wind ...