South Bank Sailing Club Blog

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 ...