news, views & information from weir wood sailing...
TRANSCRIPT
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News, Views & Information from Weir Wood Sailing Club
Issue 17 Autumn 2014 Featuring:Bart’s BashRound the Isle of SheppyMid Summers Day
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Welcome to the new edition of “Afloat”.
Introduction from the Editor
Greetings fellow Sailors and welcome to the new web based edition of “Afloat”. WWSC has had a News Letter and magazine since its inception. The first News letter was typed on an old fashioned mechanical typewriter and reproduced by a process called “ Roneo/Gestetner.” Ink and wax was wiped onto rollers and each copy wound
through. That was back in 1966. The front page of first News letter is below left.
Later, we moved to a properly printed version and the production was put in the hands of Embassy Press under the management of the Hatton family. Ernie Hatton edited the magazine up until 2007 and I took over then and have edited the copy for the last 7 years. The format was always evolving and the current version, “Afloat”, first appeared in 2009. We have had 15 further editions since then.
So what has prompted the change? Well, Colin and David Hatton, who are Embassy Press, have decided after many years of hard work to wind the company up and take a well earned retirement. So after all this time we don’t have a publisher. Over the period Embassy have served us very well producing a very professional magazine and always to time. They have produced excellent layout and artwork not just for the mag. But also for the race card and they even print the boat stickers. A huge thanks to Colin, David and Ernie for all that they have done over the years. Ernie is already enjoying his retirement (well sort of; he is still involved in various business ventures) and we wish Colin and David a happy retirement also. We will continue to see Colin sailing the RS100 with the EP logo. The Committee faced a choice. Do we find another publisher or is this the time to go to a web based version. The club is facing some challenging times and finances need careful management. The paper based mag was costing £7-£8K per annum to produce so it has been decided that now is the time to change and save that expenditure. So welcome to the new version of “Afloat”. It will take a little while to settle down as
John Chisnall
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A couple of times a year we ask you to come along to the club not to sail but to flail, not to trim your sails but to strim the grass, not to tack but to hack away at the undergrowth that tries to invade the boat park.Please come along on 8th November at 09.30 for a morning of heavy gardening, pushing back the weeds cutting and burning all entirely necessary to allow us to continue to use the paths and the boat parks. There are also some light woodworking jobs (rebuilding the fences around the bin-store) drain-clearing and digging needed so please come along pre-pared to be flexible.Ladies who Launch group please note. Rachael is calling for a gathering on the day to spring clean the club house from 11am -1 pm. Bring any cleaning paraphernalia you think might be useful. Please email Rachael to confirm that you can come.Bacon sandwiches for everyone who comes to work!
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
the Ed wrestles with the technology. If there is anyone out there who is expert with desk top publishing and would like to help in the production do get in touch.
Along with the magazine the hard copy of the race card has also been discontinued. It can now be found on the web site. Hard copies have been put up in the Club House, changing rooms race hut and signing on enclosure. The other information printed on the “Words” side of the card has been incorporated into other sections of the web site.
Alongside changing the format of the Magazine we have taken the opportunity to revamp the web site. Many thanks to Tony Carter who puts in hours of work keeping the site up to date and in a form that is easy to use. You will see that he has reorganised the Home Page which was getting rather cluttered.
Both the magazine and the racing Programme are in PDF format so that you can easily print anything off that you want in hard copy.
John Chisnall. [email protected]
By the way did you hear about the two American tourists who on a beautiful summer’s day, were driving through Wales. At Lanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobw-yllantysiliogogoch, they stopped for lunch.
They said to the waitress:
“Before we order, I wonder if you could settle an argument for us by pronouncing where we are but very, very, very slowly please?”The girl leaned over and said,
“Burrr . Gurrr . King”
Don’t think that you are going to be let off from this terrible stuff just because we have changed format.
Copy Date for next Issue 31st December 2014
Editor: John Chisnall e-mail [email protected] or [email protected]
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Commodore’s Cosy Chat
What a summer we have had. Firstly the mild winter meant that the water didn’t freeze at any time so started the Spring warmer than usual. While we haven’t experienced the highest temperatures, this summer must be one of the warmest ever and the water temperature reflects this. I was in yesterday (see story below) and it was like swimming in a tepid bath! We have been lucky with the water level as well and, at time of writing (late September) we are not far off full. This is partly because the early spring was so wet that it left the water table high, partly the aquifers under the Weald have been fully replenished and partly changes made by Southern Water to storage and supply distribution around Horsham has reduced possible demand from Weir Wood. A new pipework system to the west of us should improve the long term prospects for our water levels from 2017 onwards.
As I sit in my office to complete my Summer CCC it is off the back of one of the great days of my life and one that will live long in the memories of all who were there. The origins of the day was in tragedy, the loss of the much liked and respected Olympian Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson in the AC last year. A few of
Simon Davis
his sailing oppo’s decided that some good should come of his loss and established the ‘Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation’ and instigated ‘Barts Bash’ which was held on 21st September. The details of the event will be covered in more detail in the body of the mag. All I’ll say is that Bart’s Bash provided one of those life enhancing, almost life defining days that life rarely throws up but means so much when it does. Corporately it was amongst the best in the Club’s long history. Individually one the memory of which I shall treasure as long as I live.
The beautiful summer weather must have had an impact on membership but also participation and it has been brilliant to see the water being actively used by so many groups in the Club. Every Saturday sees large numbers of boats out from different parts of the Club. We had a fantastic Open Day in May with record numbers of new members. Most of these were families who were new to sailing and we had to move quickly to capitalise on their desire to learn to sail. Within 3 weeks of the Open Day we had both Youth and Adult Beginner courses running that provided RYA based learning for whoever of those new members wanted it. As usual it is unfair to name individuals but Peter Hargreaves, Sarah Alderman, Tim Taylor and Robin Bennett come in for special mention as , at short notice, we were able to respond.
On a cold and damp April Saturday I took my RS200 down to the Orchard Centre in Haywards Heath to try and drum up interest for the Open Day. A lady approached me who had sailed before and we had a nice chat. She brought her family with her to the Open Day and all four had a test sail. They joined. Hadley and Ella were on the beginners courses in June and father Robin and Mum Erica were
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around to help. Hadley was at Oppy camp with Erica helping. In this way whole families become members and participate in the life of the Club. New members breath new life into Clubs, new generations bring new ideas and enthusiasms and may I welcome all those who have joined this year and wish them a long and happy association with WWSC. In order to ease the transition into a new Club for new members we have a ‘buddy system’ at WWSC. If requested we allocate you an experienced member who knows the ropes and the people to go to for advice etc. So, if you’re a new member and you would like to be eased into WWSC please let me know.
The Youth groups have been outstanding this year with greater and greater numbers and noise volumes for the adult team to cope with! Vibrant, vital, effervescent, exciting all of these things and more, a strong team spirit, all for one and one for all support and I doubt the youth has seen so much activity in a generation. Again I shouldn’t pick out individuals but the names Chris Hopkins, John Hamilton, Richard Haw and Richard Baker are very much to the fore. They are a fantastic asset to the Club and their knowledge, enthusiasm and drive are taking us places we could never have expected to go. Allen Jones has sadly decided to hang up his teaching kit (he’s still sailing) after years of running the Sunday Youth groups. Fortunately there has been a mass volunteering to take his place so that Sunday “Youff” will continue. Allen is truly a legend in his own lifetime!
The big, black cloud hanging over us is the Lease renewal. This issue has taken more of my time and effort since taking over as Commodore than any other and it remains unresolved. Our position, as I have communicated to the membership at successive AGM’s, is that we
are not in a position to renew the Lease on the current rental financial terms which were fine for the Club in 1988 but will bankrupt us if we sign it in 2015 which is what our Landlords are pushing for. Over the last two and a half years our position has remained entirely consistent and they have not been prepared to move in our direction one iota. It is a major worry and continues to take up vast amounts of time, energy and intellect that, frankly, the Committee should really be spending on developing the Club. As this issues reaches its climax over the next six to eight months we will communicate with the membership as often as we can to ensure that you are as up to date as we can bring you.
Wednesdays have been brilliant this summer and continue to be a real highlight. We have had good support on the water and the meals have been a spectacular success. Wind is always a fickle phenomenon but it is always said that you learn more when the wind is light – how true. The last night was a good case in point where the ability to retain your concentration is as important as boat and sail trim. I decided to put in a big roll tack when we all went into a calm by Buoy 5 so that I could maintain my momentum. It turned out to be so large a roll tack that I rolled straight into the water and lost 4 places! It was a very humid night and the water was refreshing but certainly not bracing – more light a tepid bath than a reservoir.
One last thing before I sign off. This edition of Afloat is the first to be entirely digital. We had elected to continue the paper edition for as long as possible and then the decision was taken for us with the closure of Embassy Press who have kindly printed and distributed Afloat for years. This should be seen less as the end of an era but more as the start of a
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Thefts of Convenience
There has been an underlying and annoying habit among members that is rarely talked about but is extremely disruptive and causes untold aggravation. I term it ‘theft of convenience.’ At the Laser Open earlier in the year I went to my boat to rig to discover that my mast top had disappeared overnight. I know it had disappeared overnight because I had been practising the day before. A couple of Wednesdays ago I went to my boat to discover that the split ring for the clevis pin that holds the vang in place had disappeared since Sunday.I know why these thefts occur. I found a split ring next to my boat that Wednesday so someone had lost theirs and gone to a boat close by to nick an equivalent part. In this case I was able to replace the stolen parts fairly quickly. Can we do a deal? If you do steal, yes it is stealing, something from someone else’s boat would you please replace it after use and replace your own broken or missing part and not leave it to the poor so-and-so you stole it off to do the replacing.
Simon
dAtE for your dIAry 6th dEcEmbEr
chrIstmAs pArty &
prIzE gIvIng
new chapter. Bart’s Bash didn’t just confirm us as ‘The premiere Sailing Club in the South East. It puts us firmly in the Premiere League of all Sailing Clubs in the UK. “Afloat” was by some margin the best Club magazine around (worth the membership fee in itself). Let’s see it go from strength to strength in the future.
Thanks Ken and Rita WoodingAfter many years as members of Weir Wood Ken and Rita have decided it is time to hang up their buoyancy aids. Over that period they rarely missed a Sunday morning race in their Miracle. Summer holidays were with SunSail and more sailing. They were keen walkers and in their earlier years very committed cyclists.A few years ago they decided that they should get more venturesome with their sailing and join the asymmetric brigade. They bought an RS Vision and made a determined effort to master the new technique. But their love affair with the Miracle won out and the Vision remained ashore.Having decided it was time to stop sailing they needed to find homes for the two boats where they would be properly cared for. The Miracle has gone to Crawley Mariners and they have very generously donated the Vision to WWSC where it has joined the hire fleet. We are very grateful for this and wish Ken and Rita a happy if less energetic future. They are going to continue with us as social members and we look forward to seeing them on Sundays for lunch.
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Sailing Secretaries’ ScribblingsMartin Pascoe Ernie Hatton
This is our first report as joint sailing secretary and to start with we must say thank you to David Giles. He has passed on the baton, but is still very much involved with the sailing in his Laser and RS200. His report on the RS200 open is elsewhere in the magazine. David has also been the organiser of Bart’s Bash along with Pete Young which has brought together so many of our current members along with past ones and visitors who hopefully might be future members.
The first event that Ernie and Martin had to organise was rather impromptu. Ken Burgess was keen to capitalise on the success of his first social event, the quiz, and had booked a band for the longest day. The Commodore asked us for a sailing event earlier in the day and the obvious choice was the longest race of the year or in other words a four hour relay race. We hoped to get people into boats they don’t normally sail and with different crews. Considering that we haven’t had a long relay race at the club for at least ten years, we were impressed that six teams turned up in the full range of boats from RS400 through Laser 3000 and Enterprise to Lasers. Some people had trouble reading the advance notice of race so turned up an hour late, but we still managed to fit in 4 hours racing before the BBQ started. The weather played its part so
we had enough wind to keep us entertained, the youth 3000 especially found the spinnaker could be a handful when it wouldn’t come down. Ernie started and Martin finished the race, so that the other Sailing Secretary could sail. We did sneak in a “guest” helm so perhaps it was not surprising that we did rather well.
We believe that combining racing with social events could well be the way to get boats out of the dinghy park and on to the water. So keep an eye out for these in the future.
Bart’s Bash was not so much a social event as a way of showing how many people sail dinghies and yachts around the world. It also showed me how many of our club members are ready to offer time and experience to run an event. I’ve already mentioned David and Pete, but there seemed to be a whole host of helpers beforehand and on the day. As always it is difficult to mention some without leaving out others, but here goes, Chris Fyans was his usual busy bee making sure the car park was spruced up and the committee boat worked, Richard Haw pulled in many youth parents and organised all of the safety crews, Peter and James Meares spent hours on the boat and then number crunching the results and sending them in. Simon of course was the “Duracell Bunny
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Commodore” being everywhere at once. The sheer enthusiasm of everyone of all ages from under 5 to 85+ was truly amazing.
After taking over this job I (Martin) tried to look at all the different ways people use the water. I usually sail two races with Julie in our RS 200 on Sunday mornings and have a coffee in the club afterwards and go home about 2 pm. This means I only see a very small part of the sailing activity of the club. Wednesday nights during the summer also mix social with racing. These are popular getting about ten to fifteen boats on the water and over forty competitors through the season. The one night I managed to make it had good winds, if rather gusty and great food.
Saturday seems to put more people on the water than any other day. Optimists, Fevas, Lasers and also the Saturday racers. Regularly there are over 50 boats on the water. The youngsters get around as well, travelling to Open Meetings and Training events. Recently at Bewl Valley SC on a Saturday Laser Open the majority of the boats were from Weir Wood. This demands remarkable commitment from the organisers of the youth groups and of course parents. Sunday afternoons are another part of the club that you may not see. Again this is mostly youngsters in Toppers, Oppies and Fevas. Ernie and I are keen to rejuvenate/resurrect the Sunday afternoon racing, so we advertised a Giant Slalom event over four weeks. The first one on the 14th September was not well attended, but the young sailors wanted a start racing session as a training for Bart’s Bash. So we had about 12 Toppers, 2 Optimists, a Tera and a Feva, with two Lasers and a K1 who had turned up for the slalom, having a great time spinning
round a tiny triangle in a F4 gusty breeze. The aim is to keep these Sunday afternoon sessions with Starting Practice races after the Giant Slalom sessions, all levels of sailors from beginner to Olympian are welcome. So why not get that boat out of the dinghy park and on to the water?
Ernie and Martin
Laser RamblingsBill Stean
It’s been an unusual year so far and a bit disappointing too. I phoned the Commodore today and his cheery response was “I thought you’d left” – thanks Simon. I seem to have missed more sailing than I’ve done since cutting the end of my finger off. And when I have been sailing there’s been very little wind. I know there have been a couple of heavy days during the summer, but the last I sailed in was 11th May.
The Masters got their act together late this year. That meant that the SE Grand Prix clubs put their dates out late too so there were clashes between the clubs and with the Masters’ dates. Simon Barrington did his best
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to sort things out but I think I missed at least 3 GP events due to earlier commitments. Rather surprisingly my daughter wasn’t keen to shift her wedding date to avoid one of the late clashes. I don’t know what young people are coming to these days. I do remember the Broadstairs GP though. Drive 90 miles, rig the boat and pull it across the sand; change in a roasting cubby hole then sit drinking tea, eating ice cream and getting sunburnt before de-rigging, pulling the boat back over the sand again and driving home. Well the Weir Wood turnout was pretty good and at least the club gave us our entry fees back.
However, it looks as if next year will be far better organised. The Masters have already published their diary and Simon has successfully pushed the SE GP clubs promptly to sort out their open dates. This year Weir Wood’s GP participation has been very variable, mainly I think, because of the iffy weather. We’re nearly always the best represented travelling club at these events. I’m sure there were more WWSC sailors at Bewl this year than there were from the host club.
It would be really nice to have even more travellers next year and we certainly need to aim to win the various classes and age groups. If you haven’t tried it, give it a go. It can be quite competitive but the standard is usually quite varied and no one should be worried that they aren’t good enough. It’s great to sail on the sea but racing at inland clubs like Bough Beech is also excellent. Chipstead must have one of the worst bits of water around but they generally get a good turnout and it’s always very friendly even if it is frustrating. Makes you realise that the people make the club more than the geography and weather conditions do. If you haven’t got a trailer, or can’t put your boat on the roof, just ask
around. We’ll always manage to get you there.Pete Young arranged for RS to bring 2 of their new single handed Aeros to the club for a demonstration at the end of July. This is RS’ attempt to compete directly with Laser. I’m sure that RS think that there’s an opportunity while Performance Sailcraft is in such a mess. Unfortunately the wind was a bit too light, but it was easy to see that this is a very well thought out boat. Certainly better by a country mile than any other single-hander designed in the last 10-15 years. It’s very light, quite comfortable, has a carbon fibre mast and an excellent Dacron sail. The ability to control the sail shape is a real eye opener. It’s certainly the best competitor for the Laser that I’ve ever sailed. But it isn’t a Laser. It would be very surprising if it could build up the worldwide popularity that our boat has, or that it could match the international, national and regional junior, open and masters circuits that we have.
But maybe it will give Laser a kick where the sun don’t shine. Surely the next Laser development must be a carbon fibre mast and possibly a carbon boom. Of course it would be better (i.e. faster) than what we currently have. But over a couple of years all the keen sailors would adopt it so it wouldn’t really matter. That’s what happened when we got the new controls, and I don’t remember any serious opposition to that. The more radical and difficult change would be to design a self-draining cockpit. I’m not sure whether that could be done without changing the hull shape; and that, in my view, would be a step too far. But if it can Laser should give it a go.
Our Sunday racing numbers have varied quite a bit this year. We’ve had several heading towards the 20s but also some very low turnouts. I’m not too worried as I think the
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core is still there. Quite a number of regulars (me included) seem to have been away a lot this summer. Chris Fyans spent far too much time in Cornwall; Stuart Richardson has been sailing Tippy when he should be at Weir Wood; Geoff Bush has had a couple of injuries and also walks about the place more than can be healthy; Olly Bush has succumbed to wedded bliss – which is what I predicted when he got married; Peter Meares gave me some cock-and-bull story about travelling. That’s not a proper excuse either. And I have no idea where James has been. Climbing mountains probably; Simon Barrington only comes out if it’s force 6 plus but then he only has 3 or 4 proper competitors left at that stage. On the plus side it’s great to see Dave Merritt back on the water after a long time away and Bruce Ramshaw is starting to flex his muscles again. Unfortunately he hasn’t lost any of his ability. I think Dan Carter’s been sailing more frequently than he used to too. Ed Thorburn actually borrowed a Laser one Sunday and raced with us. If we all keep on at him he might give up his Finn. We’ve also had a couple of very welcome and competitive newcomers. Apologies I’ve forgotten your Christian names, but I’ll sort that next time I see you. One in particular has restarted Laser racing through his daughter’s interest in learning to sail. We’d be really pleased to welcome any other parents of junior sailors into our fleet whether or not you’re capable of giving the regulars a run for their money.
Finally, congratulations to Chris Spencer-Smith for winning the biggest race we’ve ever had at Weir Wood. We know how hard it is for a Laser to beat the other assorted and obviously under handicapped classes, so he’s clearly a Bart’s Bash hero. I was at Vounaki that week and Sunsail decided to enter the event a couple of days before the race. I’m
not sure that they were early enough officially to do so, but at least they tried. I’d like to claim I did as well as Chris, as I won on the water in a Laser too, beating Hobbies, and an assortment of other sailing hardware. But I can’t. The trouble is most of them couldn’t sail very well. One of the Hobbies was pretty good but as the beat was only about 400m and it was a triangular course, he didn’t really have a chance to get going. A chap in another Laser tried an interesting tactic. He had his centreboard two thirds raised on the beat so, as I lapped him on my second or third circuit, I suggested he should push it down. He claimed it reduced the drag! I wonder if we can persuade Dave Giles or Dave Binding that that’s the way to go upwind?
Bill
Cruising Notes
Mike Summers
As the days get shorter and the cruising season draws to a close we reflect on where we went and what we did. Despite there being only a few occasions when we were able to plan a cruise across to the Isle of Wight with the ideal combination of low tide in the morning of a Saturday, we had a good year!
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Our departure point of choice for cruising the Solent is Warsash at the mouth of the River Hamble which has the multiple benefits of free parking, free launching, use of the local sailing club’s changing rooms and showers and an excellent pub right on the foreshore.
The tides in the Solent around Southampton Water and the Hamble in particular run quite fast and you have to plan ahead when dinghy-sailing in this area. Time your departure wrong and you have to fight a flood tide as you are trying to escape the river mouth. The tide is trying to push you back up the river towards Bursledon. If you miss-time your return in the afternoon and meet with an ebbing tide you will not be able to get back to the public hard without a good strong sea breeze to help you along.
So we like to launch as the tide is ebbing in the morning and return close to high water at around 4.00 or 5.00pm so that the tide is not running too fast and ideally not against us. With the greatest concentration of yachts in the world (there are rumoured to be 5000 yachts on and around the river) the Hamble is a busy place to negotiate at the best of times. But if you are tacking all over the place to make progress and all of the other vessels around you, both entering and leaving at the same time and under engine power, plus the channel is not that wide, it is an easy place to have a coming together.
We were a bit limited this year in that suitable tides coincided with weekends on only a few occasions. Despite that we planned four major Solent outings this year and two Chichester Harbour forays but in the end only one of the Solent adventures went entirely as planned.
On the last day of May two Laser 2000’s and a Wayfarer together with Tony and Bridget in their yacht Cameo tried to get to Wootton Creek on the Isle of Wight, where the Portsmouth/Fishbourne ferry docks. Lack of wind (varying between light to non-existent) prevented us getting any further than Meon just along the coast from Warsash. We learned a little about towing dinghies under engine power and it was still a lovely day out on the water. Some good sailing was had when the sea-breeze kicked in at about 3.00pm but it was too late for us to get to the Island and we would certainly have arrived back at Warsash at the wrong state of tide had we tarried a while to play. The log of that day, together with some photographs, is to be found on the Cruising Logs Page of the Cruising pages on the WWSC website.
The next adventure was in June in Chichester Harbour, launching from Itchenor. Two Wayfarers and Two Laser 2000S made up the fleet and in brilliant sunshine and lovely wind, we visited Bosham Reach and lunched at Dell Quay, followed by the almost inevitable pint in the pub. By contrast with Warsash, at Itchenor you pay to launch, pay to park and pay to use the Harbour Conservancy Showers.
In July at last we made it across to the Isle of Wight in a cruise to beautiful Newtown Creek. Three Laser 2000s, a Laser Stratos and Cameo sailed across in strongish wind and interesting sea state.(See the Log of this day in the Cruising Pages.) A couple of capsizes plus encounters with cruise liners made this a day to remember.
We returned to Chichester Harbour In August with a Wayfarer, a Laser 2000 a Laser Stratos and for the first time, an Enterprise. Launching at the very bottom of the tide, it was a bit of a struggle getting up to Dell Quay
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for lunch For lack of depth and by the time we returned to Itchenor to beach and recover the boats, the tide was still flooding and the wind was running at around F4 with the tide making it quite hard to sail up towards the public hard (which was by then covered by the rising water and very crowded) and once turned down wind (and tide), very hard to stop! Ken and I chickened out, dropped Kez’s sails and motored in under outboard.
In early September we departed Warsash bound for Beaulieu with a Wayfarer, a Laser Stratos and Vareo together with Tony and Bridget in Cameo. In a re-run of the Wootton Creek cruise, the wind did not arrive and after drifting around for a while, Tony took us in tow and we made it as far as Lady Hamilton’s Cottage just west of Lepe Point, where he dropped anchor and we formed up on Cameo and boarded her for a picnic lunch. Similar to the Wootton Creek cruise, the sea breeze arrived after lunch and we were able to sail back in fine style, which was a small consolation for not having made it to our primary destination.
The last cruise of the year was to be an overnighter, staying on the Isle of Wight and returning on Sunday but it had to be cancelled due to a mix up with the availability of an overnight venue, and although we tried to arrange an alternate destination on another weekend, there were insufficient boats and crews who could make the alternative date. Maybe next year?
The finally final event of the year is Adult Cobnor (no not that sort of “adult”). Over the weekend of 24/25/26 October Tony Carter runs this grown up version of the Youth Group’s annual weekend sailing on the salty seas of Chichester Harbour. We stay in the Cobnor Activity Centre and sail in the Centre’s
Bosuns and Mk 4 Wayfarers. It’s a great weekend, definitely something different and everyone learns something new. If you want to come then move fast and let Tony know. You can reach Tony on [email protected].
So, talking of next year, we will be planning 2015 when we meet at the Chequers pub in Forest Row on Friday 6 February. Put that date in your diary. When we meet we will have identified propitious dates as regards tides for departures from Warsash, but perhaps you have ideas about alternative setting off points. Maybe you have a hankering to explore somewhere else, Poole Harbour, the East Coast, the Norfolk Broads? Come along and tell us what you want to do.
If you can’t wait until February then contact me on [email protected] Let’s organise a few cruising events on the Reservoir next year. Your sailing secretaries are keen to involve everyone and Orienteering and Treasure Hunts are but two of the possibilities.
Swallows and Amazons Forever
Mike
WEIr Wood cruIsIng 2015
plAnnIng mEEtIngfrIdAy 6th fEbruAry
chEquErs InnforEst roW
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Winding the clock back to Mid-Summers day (21/06/2014), with the weather on our side, Club members enjoyed our Picnic-n-Party evening, dancing under the stars to live music coming from the Buffalos playing hit tunes spanning three decades. On the dance floor (Club House forecourt) there were some clever moves being made along with a few uncontrolled gybes and rolled tacks (for the want of a better description) coming from some of our party revellers. Dick Lankester writes more fully about the day later in the mag.
Club members and their guests really appeared to enjoy themselves. We had a BBQ sizzling in one corner for members to use whilst other people got stuck into their picnic baskets and cool boxes. Not sure who was last to leave. I made my way back to the car at around 11:30 and there were still a few people enjoying this wonderful summers evening chatting into the night. Please keep supporting the Clubs social calendar and remember. We can plan and develop our events so much better if you buy your tickets in advance.
Ken Burgess
The Social SceneKen Burgess
Mid-Summer Picnic-n-Party
By Popular DemandBy popular request, we are planning another “Quiz Night” late October. One thing for certain, I know there are one or two teams that fancy their chances so come on members get your teams organised ready for the “Big Quiz”Last issue of “Afloat” I asked members to email me with the type of event they would like to see organised. I can’t say that I was swamped with ideas so perhaps with a couple of successes under our belts, members will be more forthcoming. The question I would like to ask: Would members like the club to hold a Christmas Party? Answers to: [email protected]
Thank you
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Mid-Summer’s Day 2014 Dick Lankester enjoys the day
Dick Lankester
Mid-Summer’s Day was celebrated in style at Weir Wood this year, with a 4 hour team race sailed during the afternoon, followed by an evening picnic and BBQ with band. A classic Weir Wood sunset was included at no extra cost.The 4 hour race was widely advertised to start at 1.00 pm, with a briefing for all competitors at 12.15 pm. In spite of this, David Giles, turned up after the scheduled start time, thinking it was a 2.00 pm start. If you ever wondered why your BA flight was delayed….At the briefing, the rules for the event were carefully explained by Race Officers Ernie Hatton and Martin Pascoe. To summarise, there were no rules, but if rules were deemed necessary during the race, they would be made up by the Race Officers.
After a slight delay, a total of 6 teams and 20 sailors took the start (not all at the same time) and set off on a course which involved visiting most of the buoys on the lake. The idea was that each team would complete a lap and then swap crews. This worked perfectly, and the off-duty crews had more than enough time to visit the clubhouse and partake of refreshments. Some competitors were a little
surprised to note that the Race Officers had also entered the race. Apparently the rules did not prevent this, so no one protested…
The final entries were:
team norfolk and good: Bill Stean/Simon Davis (Laser)team trainers: David Giles/Duncan Lawson (Laser)team capricorn: Vic Hopkins/Kevin Francis/Dick Lankester/David Wylie (Enterprise)the young ones: Ernie Hatton/Keith Payne/Sam Pascoe/Martin Pascoe/Alan Bassett (RS 400)the provisionals: Rob Atkinson, Del & Tim Jenkins and Rob Shaw (2000)youth: Jacob & Caitlin Hamilton/Emma Baker/Amy Bennett ( Laser 3000)
The early laps were sailed with a good breeze. Towards the middle of the afternoon, the wind started to fade and just as it looked as if the race might degenerate into a drifter, the wind suddenly picked up and the final hour was sailed in just about perfect conditions. A little too perfect, perhaps, for the Youth Team in the Laser 3000, who got themselves into all sorts of trouble, which included some swimming , and they retired from the contest after completing 3 laps.
The Teams
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The finish of the race at 5.00 pm seemed to come round surprisingly quickly and everyone agreed the event had been very enjoyable and should be repeated next year, when hopefully more members will be tempted to enter.
the final results were:1st The Young Ones (7 laps)2nd Team Trainers (6 laps)3rd Team Capricorn (6 laps)4th Norfolk & Good (6 laps)5th The Provisionals (5 laps)6th Youth (DNF)
No sooner had boats had been stowed
and a well-earned tea consumed by competitors than around 75 members and their families started to arrive for the evening’s entertainment. This consisted of a traditional Weir Wood picnic and DIY BBQ on the Weir Wood lawns (thanks to Mike Summers for mowing these earlier in the day). The excellent Buffalos knocked out classic rock & roll numbers as the sun set over the reservoir and even the most inhibited members were to be seen tripping the light fantastic. Summer evenings do not get much better.
A huge thank you to Social Secretary Ken Burgess for arranging a superb event and for selling so many tickets. Ken’s unique selling technique over many weekends (‘You can’t enter the clubhouse unless you buy a ticket’) might be morally questionable, but it certainly produced results. Thanks also to Martin and Ernie for arranging the afternoon race. I still can’t get my head round the fact that the Race Officers won the race!
Dick Lankester
Not too much rig tension
The 4 hour race
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Last Night of the Proms 13th September Continuing the Social theme
On Saturday 13th September the Club celebrated the conclusion of the greatest music festival in the world, “The Proms” Nearly 80 members and friends gathered in the Club House. With the club room decked out with Union Flags, Union Flag bunting and Union Flag tablecloths and napkins folded as dinghies, there could be no doubt what the evening was about.
The evening began with soprano Teresa de Roberto who sang some Puccini, some U2, Procol Harum and Rod Stewart ; including of course “We are Sailing”.
Julia and Sarah came up trumps again with a delicious supper of bangers and mash followed by apple and plum crumble.
Then we joined the Royal Albert hall for the second half of the live concert to celebrate with a worldwide audience the traditional end to the season. Conductor Sakari Oramo brought just the right touch of seriousness and humour to the occasion and our singing was gusty as we marked 50 years since Mary Poppins appeared. The evening finished with the traditional Rule Britannia and Jerusalem much amplified by a big PA system hired for the occasion. The roof was truly raised!
A big thanks to Julia and Sarah for the food and to Teresa for the live music. But the success of the whole evening was largely down to the effort of our social secretary, Ken Burgess, whose attention to detail and relentless ticket salesmanship lacked nothing. Thanks also for the help he had in techno wizard Mike Summers who ensured the sound and vision stuff all worked.
The Ed
Whose report is based on chatting to members who were there. He and Mrs Ed would have loved to have joined you but sadly we were forced to sit through the whole concert live at the Albert Hall!
The promenaders at the club
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Weir Wood RS 200 Open 2014Weir Wood hosted its annual RS 200 Open on Sunday 13th June. The wind mostly cooperated with a 5 to 10 knot westerly that shifted between South West and North West throughout the day. The wind direction allowed Race Officers Dave Binding and Peter Clifton to set a windward/leeward course along the length of the reservoir.
The wind was very light for the first start and those carrying extra weight soon made their way to the back of the fleet. Nick and Juliet Charles from Datchet soon showed their credentials by starting on what turned out to be the less favoured end of the line but leading around the first windward buoy. They were closely followed by Julian Bradley and Helen Cafferata who pushed Charles all the way but had to settle for second place.
The wind started light for race two but picked up to allow some hiking for the lighter crews. The pin end of the line turned out to be favoured as the wind filled and shifted to the south leaving David and Emily Giles from Weir Wood and Charles well clear of the rest of the fleet. This time it was Giles pushing Charles but as in the first race Charles hung on to take the win.
Although the wind had filled in after lunch it had become shiftier making it harder for the Race officers to set a square line and a true windward leg. Race 3 saw Giles lead for the first lap but allowed Charles to pass on lap two who went on to win.
With three wins Charles had won the meeting, but the minor places were still up for grabs. Shortly after the start to race 4 the wind shifted North which created a fetch/reach type of course and made overtaking difficult. Jo Field and Lizzy Peacock from Bartley sailing club gained the lead and were comfortably able to hold back Will Taylor and Fiona Mulchay from the Alton Sports Centre.
The final race win gave Field second overall with Giles having to settle for third. In the “spot” prizes the youth prize went to Will Taylor, the Master Prize to Martin Pascoe and the Lady’s prize to Helen Cafferata. Finally the endeavour prize went to David and Miriam Ramshaw.
David Giles
Membership mattersThis year, your membership team have been working hard to provide information from the club’s membership database, WebCollect, to support the club’s lease renewal negotiations. One of the biggest problems has been the large number of late renewals this year. I’m sure you will be as surprised as we were that a few renewals were not completed until August.
This, of course, is unfair to the majority who pay in a timely manner and causes a range of problems with regard to the efficient running of the club.
The 2015/16 fees will be agreed at the AGM in December. The club’s rules actually
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say that membership renewal is due by 1 March each year and it’s clear that, over a number of years, we’ve drifted later and later. We’re planning to propose at the AGM a change to the due date as it makes more sense for the renewal date to be 31 March to align with our financial year but at the same time, it’s vital to the well-being of the club that members have renewed by the start of the new sailing season. You can therefore expect to receive your membership renewal notice much earlier next year. They will go out early in January 2015, with a prize draw as an incentive to renew promptly.
The club’s preferred method of payment is continuous Direct Debit through GoCardless, which provides you with the benefits of the direct debit guarantee scheme and is a huge benefit to the club as it is integrated with WebCollect, requiring very little administrative input. We strongly encourage you to renew using GoCardless. The other available payment methods are:
• Credit card payments through PayPal – (surcharge applies)• Bank transfer• Cheque• Standing Order
As soon as you receive your reminder, you will still need to check your details and boats are correct. If you have any difficulty with WebCollect, help will always be just an email or a phone call away. Peter Hargreaves. Membership Committee
Saturday Club Opening Times, Winter 2014-15Following the receipt of feedback from OODs who were on duty last winter, the Committee has reviewed Saturday opening times and duties. It was very apparent last winter that members rarely turned up to sail on Saturday mornings. This meant that the OOD and Support Boat crews who reported at 9.00 am spent the morning sitting around with nothing to do. The Saturday afternoon races were generally not well supported and often did not take place at all, resulting in wasted journeys for the rostered Timekeepers. On the occasions when there were enough competitors to run the races, the OODs were easily able to manage the race on their own without a Timekeeper.
The Committee has therefore decided that for the months of December, January and February 2014-15, the following arrangements will be implemented on a trial basis on Saturdays:
1. Club opening time and reporting time for OODs and Support Boat crews on Saturdays will be 12.00 pm
2. Saturday afternoon races will be scheduled as normal, but no Timekeepers will be rostered.
These changes will not affect Sunday duty arrangements and opening times, which will continue to be 9.00 am. These arrangements will be reviewed next season.
Dick LankesterDuty Coordinator
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2000 NewsWe have had a successful 2000 Nationals with Rob and Katie winning the Championships and against a strong Army contingent. Weir Wood’s five boats won the Team competition for the first time since Sidmouth in 2010. Exmouth SC was a beautiful place to compete, with a sheltered beach and the estuary available to explore when we had time out. The wind and weather were just a stunning.The 2000’s have been busy with the Cruising section which has been active. Others have raced around the Isle Of Sheppey.
Michael RamusFleet Captain
Other NewsYou may be interested to know that two ex Weir Wooders are doing well. Sam Pascoe won the Prince of Wales Cup a couple of weeks ago in Weymouth crewing for Glen Truswell in the International 14. Megan Pascoe won the 2.4mR Europeans in Sneek, Holland in July and was 4th in the IFDS World Championships in Halifax, Nova Scotia with Helena Lucas 2nd.
Letter to the Editor – Saturday RacingDear John [or rather Dear Editor as I hope you may be inclined to publish this in the next issue of the magazine unless I have missed something similar] Although a Saturday afternoon race remains on the calendar, participation in this seems for a long time to have dwindled almost to nothing. Indeed in the winter months there have hardly ever been any entrants at all. This is a great pity. For much of my active sailing life at Weir Wood (now
somewhat curtailed by old age and stiff limbs) one could usually count on at least half-a-dozen boats racing even in winter, and many more on a good summer afternoon. When I joined the Club thirty something years ago I didn’t participate in racing because I perceived that I wasn’t good enough, and as a church-goer I wasn’t free on Sunday mornings, but I was persuaded by Brian Woodward that Saturday afternoon racing was a light-hearted affair which no-one took very seriously, ideal for a beginner and that I needn’t be afraid of making a fool of myself. So I had a go and I did make a fool of myself but I enjoyed it so much so that I went on to race every Saturday I could for many years. So I wonder how many people who are new to sailing (or like me, incurably incompetent) have been put off racing by what they see as the seriously competitive atmosphere of Sunday mornings? I’m not sure how we can encourage Saturday racing, and the problem is of course is that when people do turn up they find they are the only ones so go away and don’t come back and the situation becomes self-perpetuating. I hope some of your readers may have some ideas but I suspect this is something that is up to ‘ordinary’ members and not left to our commodore and his officers. Yours sincerely Peter Gorman
Weir Wood sailing club Annual general meeting
sunday 7th december from 14:00hrs
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The announcement of the 2014 Isle of Sheppey round the Island race was rather confused as the main website for Isle of Sheppey Sailing Club has been reorganised, but Pete and I were determined to compete again in this, our favourite event of the sailing year.
Organisation of the race is wonderful although as you arrive in Sheerness you are directed by the IoSSC helpers onto the top of the sea defence wall! As cars make their way along the wall, boats are rigged in preparation for the ramp/slipway down to the beach area in front of the clubhouse. At the ramp, more helpers swarm over you to take the boat on its launching trolley off the road trailer and down to the waterside. The car driver then drives with the trailer around to a car park a little way down the coast road.
There are several start times, dependent upon PY number (more on this later). Pete and I in our Laser 2000 were scheduled for an 11:00 start. At 10:00 there is a race briefing. I summarise “go clockwise”, then “only go round once ‘cos it’s a 35 mile circuit” The start line is between the committee boat and a mark (somewhere near Southend), but positioned so that you don’t run into a sand bank immediately ahead.
So, off we went, commencing at 11:00. Due to prevailing westerly wind, the start is usually down wind or on a broad reach. And so it was that we set off with the kite flying at full speed. However, after about 7 minutes we had a slight altercation with another boat
Isle of Sheppey Race 201430th August 2014
Peter Deeming & Martin Cragg take part yet again.
that was unsure of the starboard tack rule!! Capsize ensued and the resultant loss of about 10 minutes as the mast was stuck in the mud after the almost total inversion. We lost our burgee and also the rudder downhaul rope.
Eventually, with boat righted and kite back up, we were zooming along. Endomondo tracker said we were averaging over 12mph during the early part of the race – 6 tacks in 90 minutes. The rudder was popping back up because we were sailing so quickly. It was a total blast. Turning the corner into the Swale was a different story as we had to do lots of short tacks to stay in the channel of the rising tide.
At the 3/4 point in the race, you pull into shore, capsize the boat to wade through under the low bridge and set sail again on the other side. I can state though, after sailing for four hours at that point, as soon as your feet touch the water, the instantaneous reaction is connected directly to the bladder. Thank heavens for the decision to wear a wetsuit rather than a drysuit. J
Below is the Endomondo Track we took, marking the mile points, bearing in mind the 2 miles and 25 minutes sailed prior to race start, the whole race took 5 hours and an extra 25 minutes or so whilst we were assisted again by the IoSSC team to get the boat out of the water.
As ever it was a great day of exciting sailing. The results on the IoSSC.co.uk website show that Pete and I finished 6th out of 68 entrants. However, they messed up the results, got the PY number wrong and said we started 30 minutes after we actually did! We believe that we were 29th.
As ever, we stayed in Sittingbourne for the Saturday night as is our ritual and enjoyed
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Get TweetingDid you know that Weir Wood SC is on Twitter!
Twitter is a great way for the club to get the latest news to you in a flash, Naturally it will only work once we get the membership using Twitter to receive our tweets, this is the next challenge. So we need to come up with a way to get the membership tweeting!
lots of beer and a curry before crashing out in a hotel there and continuing home on Sunday. Our ambition is to get more Weir Wood members to turn out for this race, although I see that Paul and Peter Jenkins competed this year in their Merlin Rocket. We didn’t bump into them, so didn’t get a chance to discuss the race at all. We see it as a great sailing experience and excellent fun. So come along next year folks.
Martin and Peter
Weir Woods Bart’s BashersBart’s Bash 21 September
We had been planning this for months and anticipating the thrill of the event by watching the number grow on the BB web site and getting even more excited as we saw Weir Wood’s name creep up the list of largest entries. In the end we were joint 12th In thE World with the Andrew Simpson Sailing Centre.
The event was a world record attempt for the largest sailing race ever (actually hundreds of races all held within a 24 hour period) in memory of one of the UK’s greatest sailors, Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson who tragically lost his life in an America’s Cup Training accident last
year. The idea is to raise funds for the Andrew Simpson Training Foundation, a charity set up to encourage and inspire children to get into sailing. More than 11,000 sailors from 700 sailing clubs across 65 countries had signed up.
It was a record turnout. WWSC hadn’t seen anything like it for years. 117 entries and with helms and crews there were 154 people on the water competing and supporters there must have been something like 200 people on site. It was great to see a number of past members joining us including Joe and Megan Pasco. Megan is part of the British sailing team and is making a bid to get into
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the next Olympic team. Also Amy Hulley and partner who have moved back into the area. We hope we will see more of them
We had a fabulous day for the event, sunny warm and enough wind to satisfy all. Martin set a simple course that covered much of the reservoir starting down by buoy 5 beating up to the dam and back downwind towards buoy 7. Most did 3 laps. -The emphasis was on having fun and enjoying the occasion and the notice of race and Martin Pascoe’s briefing reinforced this with a plea that apart from some very basic safety calls to avoid collisions strict racing rules shouldn’t be insisted on. But you know WWSC competitors! And the following exchange was heard at one point between leaders John and David Ramshaw and Chris Spencer-Smith.Chris: “Water”John: “No water”Chris: “I thought that this was a fun race.”John: “It is but you still can’t have water!”
The world is full of more coincidences than you generally think. The same Chris Spencer-Smith having seen the raffle prize painting approached Jean before the race and said that he would like to commission a painting. All orders gratefully received. He then went on to win the event and who do you think won the raffle; Chris Spencer-Smith!
Dick Lankester, the Enterprise Fleet Captain reported that four Enterprises took the start, including non-racers Richard & Joanna Hayes and very-occasional-racers Glen Campbell/Nigel Gibson. Richard and Joanna had never raced at Weir Wood before and were understandably a bit apprehensive. They needn’t have been, as they made a brilliant start and arrived at the windward
mark a good 5 minutes ahead of the highly tuned Lankester/Wylie and Hopkins/Francis Enterprises. A new talent has been discovered! Glen and Nigel’s race was delayed on the second lap by a capsize, caused, according to Glen, by a collision with a whale.”
The start line was amazing. It was split into two sections; one for those not experienced in racing and the other for the more experienced racers. The latter was a sight to behold particularly from the Ed’s viewpoint who had cautiously held back from the madness of the pack. So tight were they all that we couldn’t get across the line for a while with all the dirty wind.When the course was completed competitors were able to sail to a support boat driven by a leprechaun in a large green hat who handed out drinks to anyone who could get alongside.
Launching and coming ashore by the Fishing Hut slip was easy but it was a different story by the pontoon where chaos reigned. But thanks to a number of kind helpers boats were launched and got ashore with a great deal of humour.
Full results can be found elsewhere on the web site but the first places were:
1st Chris Spencer-Smith Laser2nd John and Dave Ramshaw RS2003rd Paul Cullen and Gina Madinis Fireball4th David Binding Laser5th Duncan Lawson Laser6th Ansel Levy Dethmers Optimist
Ali and Tracy provided a revitalising curry for lunch. The Club House was heaving with folk in a very ebullient mood. The raffle was well supported raising more than £200.00.
Thanks to everyone involved in organising the day. In particular to
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Bart’s Bash 2014
David Giles and Peter Young as Event Organisers, Martin Pasco as Race Officer, Julie Pasco and team on the committee boat, Peter and James Meares for signing on entries and recording and processing the results, Richard Haw and the whole safety boat teams, Ali for the food and the witnesses, photographers and to Ann Lankester who ensured that mayhem didn’t occur in the car park. Apologies to anyone I have left out.
Julie, Peter and James all needed a large shot of aspirin as they came off the water having logged all the boats round the course and processed the results. With the large number of entries, 25 different classes of boats and competitors sailing various numbers of laps they had their work cut out to process the results; a task too big to finish on the day. Plus they had to deal with a certain Fireball sailor who is always late, who raced but didn’t know he had to sign on and pay an entry fee. Fortunately the race team were lenient and he was allowed to sign on after the event.
Overall we were able to donate £600.00 to The Foundation which included proceeds from the raffle as well as surplus funds from the event entry fees.
I am sure there are loads of individual stories to be told about the day. Do let me have them and I will include in the next issue. Photos in this Magazine are from David Wylie who shot them from the water whilst racing. Other photos of the day can be found at the following links from Peter Meares and Richard Haw:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110413378242000637070/BartSBash21stSept2014https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6xim1HZiwQSNDJ4TEdOVnhZS1U&usp=sharing
The Ed
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Bart’s Bashers @ Weir Wood
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Allan Jones Retires
In about 1983 Mr and Mrs Ed. Joined WWSC and shortly after signed up for a basic sailing course. One of the instructors was a certain Allan Jones. Yes, he has been about that long; indeed even longer. Allan has decided to retire after 27 years as an instructor and he really means it this time. He has said that he will help out if needed but he is hanging his organisational buoyancy aid up for good.Allan’s natural modesty precluded him from writing his own praises; indeed writing anything. So the Ed had to drag it out of him.
Allan started sailing back in 1968 having bought a Mirror dinghy kit which enjoyed building. Since then he has sailed Enterprises and now a Laser. He joined WWSC in about 1970 and started instructing in 1987. Apart from general instructing he has been at the centre of Sunday Youth, Oppy Camps, more than 50 Youth Cobnors, several Adult Cobnors and Sunday afternoons with the Guides with whom he has done at least 10 Cobnors. That’s a fantastic record which no doubt exceeds any other individual contribution to Club activities.
Allan’s other interests include model making and walking. He walks regularly every week and is frequently away exploring the UK and more exotic venues.
The Cub owes Allan an enormous debt of thanks for all the dedicated hard work he has put in over the years and with such enthusiasm and commitment. We look forward to seeing him sailing for many years to come. Thanks Allan from everyone especially all the young people who have benefited from your instructing and friendship.
Youth NewsWeir Wood SC Youth Report Autumn 2014
Chris Hopkins
At the time of writing we are preparing for Bart’s Bash. Hopefully a full report will magically appear in this magazine but it already looks like the largest club participation event ever seen at Weir Wood and it’s really great to see a major youth presence from all sections of our activity.
It must have been 5 years ago that Simon asked me to set up something for young sailors progressing from Optimists. This coincided very nicely with a group of children with active sailing parents needing to move on. What has happened now is frankly amazing. Even on a quiet Saturday afternoon during the summer there were some 20 young sailors out playing and practising. On a “normal” Saturday
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afternoon now it is over 40 with another 20 on Sundays! The latest initiative is to add a development group on Saturdays for those with less sailing experience that don’t fit in Oppies. The development group uses mainly Laser 4.7s and Toppers (we have recently acquired and fitted out 5 good Toppers to racing spec.). It has been a busy year with youngsters moving on from Oppies and new members coming in directly or through the extra sessions put in on Saturday mornings to meet the demand. The more experienced of these are now moving on to join the main racing group allowing room to take on more. If you are interested in any of our groups please contact me or any other member of the Youth Parent Team.
They say that success breeds success and there is no doubt that the tremendous atmosphere on a Saturday and the great relationship with the adults of the Saturday Skills groups are generating loads of interest bringing in more members. To be honest this has not been without challenges – the need to adhere to RYA teaching ratios, the number of activities and the number of participants mean that, on occasion, resources are stretched to the limit. There have been some lively discussions about how to resolve this but plans are being put in place. Overall though, while it didn’t feel it at the time, it’s a nice problem to have!
An interesting development recently is a marked international feel to the youth groups with new members from Argentina/Holland, Iceland and France to add to our existing German representation. It’s really great to welcome you all.
At the start of the summer Allan announced that he was finding running the Sunday Group every week too much. Thanks to Gail and Mark who have provided the continuity to allow us to work using a rota of Senior Instructors to meet the RYA requirements and of course thanks to the team of Senior Instructors who have pitched in. This arrangement will continue at least through this autumn.
The amount of training now being done throughout most of the weekend is now forcing us to think out of the box in so far as we need at least one SI on site all day Saturday and Sunday afternoons. A rota for duty SI is a likely outcome but this will be able to leverage on the fact that we have SIs involved in many of these groups.
I only realised how long I have been involved in Youth Sailing when some of the kids we saw taking their first steps in Optimists went off to university this week. It was a bittersweet weekend to see the group come together for lunch to mark their move. I am delighted that our young members are sufficiently bonded to arrange this spontaneously amongst themselves and I hope this shows that friendships made sailing can last a lifetime. I certainly meet many old sailing friends on the youth circuit with their kids and continue to make new friends both at the club and on the circuit.
As one of those off to university is Fiona we needed to find a new youth representative. I am happy to say that David Haw and Jacob Hamilton have volunteered to take this on. Hopefully you will hear from them elsewhere but any young sailors with ideas on what you want to see please talk to them. We held another very successful Youth and Optimist camp. Thanks to Richard Baker and Kathy Bennett for shouldering the worst of the burden and to the many volunteers who helped. This
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followed the same pattern as last year with a Youth Camp over the weekend and Oppy Camp running Saturday to Wednesday. It was also great that many parents stayed over the weekend. Next year, however, we will need to change the format as it is difficult to maintain the necessary control for child protection purposes with a lot of adults / teenagers on site. Accordingly it is likely that we will revert to the traditional format of Oppy Camp beginning on Sunday and run a separate family camp over a weekend. Watch this space!Over the summer our members have travelled the world competing at various championships. We had some 8 boats at the Oppy Nationals in Weymouth. A smaller group than usual went to the Laser Nationals in Largs due to the length of the journey and a shortage of leave. I have to say though that, once we got there, Largs proved to be a most beautiful location, good accommodation though it has to be said is hard to find and a few tales were told. I am still puzzled as to how Jazz found her caravan bunk too short. Was she sleeping sideways? A great sailing location but it was an hour and a half’s sail to the start line on some days. We also had the tail end of the hurricane which caused so much excitement (press overreaction) at the GP14 worlds but suffered no incident other than a few broken masts.We are now in the thick of the autumn sailing programme. Last week 14 Weir Wood Lasers (not counting Dave Goddard) formed the majority of a 25 boat fleet at Bewl. We encouraged our Youth members to join us as this type of event presents a great introduction to open meeting sailing. Jack Sywak won the 4.7 fleet (made up entirely of Weir Wood boats) while David Haw was 3rd and Verity Hopkins 4th in the radials only being separated from the winner by 2 points.As usual our season will end in early
November with the Cobnor weekend on 7 – 9 November. Allan is organising this so please get your application forms back to him as soon as you can to allow us to plan.The Youth parent team is putting together a winter programme; no more than 1 weekend a month. We have already contracted Andy Kerr to run 3 sessions over the winter. Numbers will be limited to give maximum value and it is likely that we will run 4.7s one day and Radials the other. E-mail comms will be sent out in the coming weeks. We are trying to see if we can organise Oppy training in parallel.Please note also that a UKLA national 4.7 training weekend will be run at Weir Wood 10/11 January.
Chris
New youth reps.
Jacob Hamilton and David Haw take up the reins.
Firstly, we would like to thank Fiona Harrington for being the youth rep for the last few years and doing such a great job. As Fiona has moved onto university and has less time to spend sailing, we, Jacob Hamilton and David Haw have stepped into the role of ‘youth
Jacob Hamilton & David Haw
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rep’ not really knowing exactly what we’ve got our hands in for but hey, could be fun!We both started out as keen young Oppy sailors some 10 years ago and have progressed up the youth ladder even since, attending numerous events and training sessions along the way. We both actively sail Laser radials both at WWSC and around the UK.To summarise the past year as a whole for youth sailing we would say it has been a success with a lot of good results being seen and also many new faces joining which is great to see.Saturday youth has grown hugely in the past year with a good turn out each week whatever the weather (some adults could learn from this!) and sticking with all the hurdles thrown at them whether it be 25 knots or 0.5 knots.Looking further afield from just Saturday youth, there have been a lot of external events happening around. Emma Baker has been doing very well in the 420 class, representing GB at the Eurosafs and the Europeans. We also had three youth member’s competing at the Laser Nationals in Largs this year, Verity and Millie Hopkins and Jazz Sayed participated in some hard conditions representing WWSC well there. Other congratulations go to four new youth DI’s (dinghy instructors)Robert Chandler, Jazz Sayed and us two, who have all passed with race endorsement. If anyone has any questions related to the youth section, training (lots coming soon) or want to know how to progress through the youth section as you grow up or if you have any questions or queries, please come and approach us for welcome advice.One last thing, Youth Cobnor is on the 7th-9th November, book it soon and put it in the diary.
Jacob and David
CongratulationsWell done to our Youth for their recent Exam results and Uni placements. We wish them good luck and do hope they will keep in touch and come and sail during their vacations: Fiona Harrington off to Liverpool to read Aeronautical Engineering Tamsin Ghansam going to Reading to read Psychology Katie Wood to Norwich to read Drama Katie Burridge taking a year out before going somewhere when she is finally decided. Robert Chandler is off to Cambridge to read engineering.
Also congrats to several of our GCSE takers who have an exceptional number of A*’s amongst them which has pushed them up to well over 6 foot tall! (David, Jacob, etc)
“Au revoir”A number of our stalwarts have decided to have a change in lifestyle and are leaving us at least for a while.2000 sailors Dil and Lynn Sandhu are off to Goa, India to sample very different culture. Sons Jamie and Woody are also spreading their wings. Woody has landed a rowing scholarship in Florida (Shame about your girlfriend Woody who has landed a similar scholarship in Seattle!). Jamie has completed his Masters at Loughborough in design and engineering and is now contemplating his navel. Should he do his PhD?
Alison and Peter Skinner also from the 2000 fleet are going to live in south of France. We wish them “Bonne chance”
And Andrew Sloper, another 2000 sailor, has gone to work in San Francisco for a year or two.
What is it about the 2000 fleet? Must talk to Mrs Ed about relocating!
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Another “Thanks” to Ken Stone
He’s always around doing something! For years it was maintaining the Support Boats. He retired from that last year. But Ken has to be active doing practical things and we are very grateful for that. His latest project at WWSC is to restore all the benches which commemorate various past members of the Club. He completed the job for Open Day and splendid they look.
This Hull looks a bit doggy
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01342 326708 30 Railway Approach � East Grinstead � RH19 3HX www.meridianosteopath.co.uk
LOW COST CHILDREN’S CLINIC on Mondays
We are happy to discuss your particular problem to see if osteopathy might help.
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Reflections on LifeMy mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
The only time the world beats a path to your door is when you’re in the bathroom.
A husband is someone who, after taking the rubbish out, gives the impression that he just cleaned the whole house.
My neighbour was bit by a stray rabid dog. I went to see how he was and found him writing frantically on a piece of paper. I told him rabies could be treated, and he didn’t have to worry about a Will. He said, “Will? What Will? I’m making a list of the people I want to bite.”
Definition of a teenager? God’s punishment for enjoying sex.
Published by Weir Wood Sailing Club ©2014