A bit of a cooler day today, but was a good one for a thorough test of the A Class yachts before the Nationals start in three days time.
A few sailors turned up a bit earlier for Nats preparations. Flag pole sorted, competiton buoys laid, gazeebos checked and repairs planned on the one that needs some TLC. Tide today was very low. So much so that the floating pontoon was not floating at any point in the day. Back to the yachts, Kyle had a new boat to test out in competiton after the "soft launch" last week. Mike and Lisa had new sails to sort out as well. Phil had the first sail of his new (2nd hand) A, John continued testing out his A and Lester Pearson visited for some testing of the Elwick Bay waters. Stu and Les got us away close to the start time. Some allowance made (thanks) for my running around with buoy placements and helping others get their boats ready. We used the competiton course as best we could without a boat being out there to adjust (which will be available throughout the nationals). After a while, we saw that races were under ten minutes, so the two lap course was pushed to three. Michael was having a really good day, but could only sail for about an hour, Firsts, seconds and a 3rd showed he will be up the pointy end this coming week. We did have an amount of attrition towards the end of the day, with John breaking a jib boom, Phil's battery died and Kyle lost a jib sheet prior to the last race. In all though it was a solid hit out with 6 of the 7 yachts getting at least one podium finish in. In the end, Kyle came away with the round win. Very happy with the performance of the new build, winning the day on 13 points - all 1's and 2's after the drops. A very consistent day. Second place was Lisa Blackwood, 3 behind on 16 points. Mostly consistent day and the boat was very fast, but a few mistakes cost dearly in the end. Third place was Rod Marshall, on 26 points. Never far behind and took advantage on multiple occasions when the boat in front made a mistake or didn't quite see the wind shift coming. Big thanks to Les, Stu and Ray today for doing the RO work for a great tune up in preparation for the Nationals. Coming up Wednesday is the start of the ARYA Nationals with A Class racing (12-14 Feb), followed by IOM (15-18 Feb), RM's (19-21 Feb) and finally the 10R's (22-24 Feb). Racing starts at 10 most days till 6 with the exception of each class' last day which will finish at 1pm. The A Class and 10R are likely to finish by the end of the second day with maximum races sailed. Please get along to see the action if you can. It's a great opportunity to see the best in Australia sailing. Kyle
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We have had a marvellous summer if nice weather is what counts and today was no exception. Another sunny, blue-sky day with temperature 21 degrees. The wind was a bit undecided though with a sea breeze competing against a Northerly for most of the day, never above 5 knots, some very soft patches, never really leaving us totally becalmed, but swinging all over the compass.
Our usual PRO Andrew Wardrop couldn’t make it as he is preparing the radio sailing exhibit for the wooden boat festival. All the best for this Andrew. The exhibition is always very well done and attracts a lot of interest to our sport. Peter Germaine was on hand this morning and stepped into the PRO’s position. Just as Peter left at lunch time Lisa Blackwood arrived and she and Rod Jackman officiated for the afternoon sharing the sailing of Rod’s boat. Thanks Rod, Lisa and Peter for your work today. I did think that today’s racing was conducted with great spirit and camaraderie. Honourable mention today I award to my brother Al Short who won the first two races straight off the bat and has shown definite improvement since he started RC sailing about 6 months ago. There is definitely some sibling rivalry brewing! It is tempting to say that you needed good luck on a shifty day like today but when you look at the results sheet – the cream has risen, and the top end is dominated by our ‘gold standard’ skippers. Good skippers make their own luck! Today’s winner was Mr Consistency Buzzy Behrens. Second went to Jammy Jones who is back to somewhere near his best form and third place went to Ray Joyce with two race wins in his mix. Congratulations Buzzy, Jammy and Ray! COMING UP: Today was our last Wednesday handicap sail for a while as the club focus is now on the National Championships. Our next Wednesday handicap sail will be on Feb 26th and will be for IOM's This Sunday there will be scratch racing for A-Class (1:00 button-press)) The National Championships opens with a woodies invitation regatta on Tuesday 11th Feb (1:00 button-press) The following day (Tuesday 12th) A-Classes will begin three days of competition. There is going to be some great racing ahead. Even if you are not sailing in the Nationals make sure that you come out to watch and lend a hand if you can. Shorty What a perfect day today.
For starters, a small group turned up a bit early and removed our permanent buoys from the sail area and installed the new "Championship Buoys" for use over the next few weeks. The idea being a good dress rehersal for the upcoming National Championships. Our course was set a bit different today, and we plan to use the same throughout the Champs. A start line alongside the lee gate consisting of three buoys. Two were around 25m apart for the start line, with one buoy closer to shore about 5m away from one of the start buoys, which made up the leeward gate. That allowed for the maximum available first beat to the windward mark and offset mark in order to maximise the space available to separate the fleet prior to rounding that first mark. We completed two of these laps and closed out to a dedicated finish line about half way up the beat. At 10am, when we started prepping, the river was glassed out, but by 1pm start, all boats had selected their B rigs for the day, which ended up being rather over-powered by the close of the days sailing. Fifteen sailors fronted today, with both Stu and myself electing to not sail and help out with buoy setting and RO duties. Unfortunately, a new skipper, Rowan, started the first race but suffered a winch failure and couldn't contest the remainer of the day. He will be back, being quite keen on contesting the Nationals as a newly minted RBRYC member. Rowan comes from a decorated sailing background, having just competed in the SB20 World Championships and also heavily involved in foiling Moths. We also welcomed Lester Pearson, who has come for the Nationals from NSW, and has made a bit of a holiday of it and will be spending some time fishing around the state as well. Lester will be sailing in the A Class and IOM Class Championships. From the get go today, Mat Gray showed he has lost nothing at all with his sailing. Broke out in the first race and showed a clean set of heels throughout most of the day. Great to see you back on the water Mat, and looking forward to you hopefully being OK for the IOM Nationals. The sailing today was quite fast in the upper end of B rig conditions. The wonderful sea breeze giving us absolute champagne conditions throughout. Very little to no noise from the skippers today, and the RO's thank everyone for their behaviour on the water. As mentioned, by the end of the 11 races today, Mat Gray had blasted away to a resounding round win, on 11 points. He has to drop two second places...... Top effort Mat. Second place today went to Michael Hickman on 24 points. Also very well sailed today. Third place today went to Lisa Blackwood on 31 points. Clearly today was dominated by the top four skippers, all having a very consistent day out. In Silver Fleet, we had Jammy Jones taking the round out on 19 points. Welcome back to club racing Jammy, and we hope you enjoyed it anf want to sail much more often with us. Second place, just two behind, was Ian Hey on 21 points, with John Short a further two behind on 23 points. Thanks today to our RO's Les and Stuart for their work on setting courses, managaing that start line and calling over the finishing boats. Great job guys. Coming up This coming Wednesday will be Mid Week DF95 Handicap at the dam, button press at 1pm. Next Sunday will be A Class Scratch at Montrose, button press at 1pm as well as preparations for the Nationals. Come along and help out if you can for the preparations. We have a committee meeting tomorrow night to conclude (hopefully) all of our committee preparations and organising of volunteers to roles etc. If you have yet to offer assistance but feel you would like to, please get in touch with us as soon as possible so we can add you to the list and give an allocation to roles/tasks. Kyle A beautiful sunny day, 21 degrees and a fairly consistant North-Westerly of about 8 knots gave us pretty much ideal conditions for our IOM handicap at Risdon Brook Dam today.
Rod Marshall took on PRO duties and made sure that the day ran smoothly. Thanks Rod for your work today. We welcomed guest skipper Rohan Langford who sailed Phil Turnbull’s Blitz in the pre-lunch session. Rohan is a regular skipper with the DSS DF65 group and has recently competed in the SB20 world titles in Singapore. A naval designer by profession Rohan is very interested in IOM design. He certainly performed very well for his first IOM sail with a race win and two second places. Well done Rohan – we hope that you enjoyed your sail today. Jammy and I had a bit of a shock when launching our boats we found that the ramp winch was not snibbed at the ratchet. With both of us on the ramp it suddenly went rolling out into deeper water. I guess it could have been worse and it just meant wet sloshy boots for the morning. Glad that it wasn’t winter! The podium was well shared today with race wins for the first seven skippers and podium appearances for all but Dave Woolley who unfortunately broke a shroud in the first race and decided to spend the day just cruising the course with his B-rig. Third overall was John Hall with two race wins on his score sheet. Second and first today were equal on points but I managed a count-back victory over Ray Joyce with an extra race win in my tally. It was such a lovely day to be Radio Sailing. Let’s all hope that our run of great weather will hold through the National Championships. Coming Up: Sunday: IOM Scratch sailing at Montrose and a great chance for a last workout before the Nationals (1:00 button-press) Next Wednesday: DF95 Handicap racing at Risdon Brook Dam. (11:00 button-press) Shorty A fine but flukey day today for the 5th running of the Australia Day Handicap Shield. Winds were very light apparently, until I turned up at the start of race 6 and th esailors were then treated to some good consistent wind (you're welcome).
Ten sailors made it to the dam. A bit light on but with it being a long weekend, I am sure many would have been away with families etc, taking advantage of the extra day tomorrow. Seven races sailed in all, and with the early dominance of Lisa, it was hard for anyone to crawl back her significant lead - finishing the day in first on 14 points. Coming in close behind was Rod Marshall with his Blister, just three behind on 17 points. Third place was Andrew Wardrop - making it a Blister podium - two further afield on 19 points. A very difficult day to get handicaps right in the end, with the wind being so light earlier on and then coming in nicely for the last two races. Thanks to our PRO, Les Hanson, for getting everyone under way and managing the best he could on the handicaps. Coming up Wednesday will see the IOM's in action again on Mid-Week Handicap. Button press at 11am. Next Sunday will be IOM Scratch Round 2 at montrose, button press at 1pm. We intend on pulling up the existing buoys and laying courses as we would for the upcoming Nationals for a dress rehersal. We hope to see as many sailors as possible there on the day to give it a real good test. Kyle A shifty and gusty South-Westerly of around 10 knots predominated for todays IOM handicap racing at Risdon Brook Dam.
Peter Sylvester was our PRO for the day and he set some good courses and kept the day moving well. Peter chose to start our races at the central buoys, 5 and 6. This kept us away from the unpredictability of ‘cow-corner’ and challenged us with a slightly different course to get our heads around. Thanks for your work today Peter. I am certain that the day runs much smoother and there is less conflict when we have a permanent PRO for the day and so this will be the policy while we are racing a large fleet. If you would like to assist by going on a PRO roster for Wednesday please let me know. All help is greatly appreciated. Acting as PRO does give you a different perspective of the racing too which can improve your own sailing skills. Some stronger gusts while we were having lunch prompted one skipper to suit down to his B-rig for the afternoon but things didn’t work out that well for him and probably the less said the better about that decision. Third position overall today went to John Hall with lots of second and third places in his results. Jammy Jones was second again today. Jammy’s frequent podium appearances earned him the maximum handicap of 70 for next week. Lisa Blackwood was today’s winner. Her dominant performances over the last couple of weeks show that she is in great form for the Nationals which are only a couple of weeks away now. COMING UP: (PLEASE NOTE CHANGE) Sunday: The Australia Day Shield. Please note that this will now be for all classes (not just DF95 as previously advertised). I know that the A class skippers and plenty of IOMs will be keen to get pre-championship practice time. Racing will be at Risdon Brook Dam with an 11:00 button-press Next Wednesday: IOM handicap racing at Risdon Brook Dam (11:00 button-press) Shorty A very impressive fleet of 17 today at the dam in some trying and fickle conditions. Very light breeze and somewhat variable from most points of hte compass today.
We welcomed a number of visitors today for the sail day. Welcome (again to many of the visitors) to John Penman, Scott Brain and Matt Bugg from the DSS. On behalf of the club, we hope you enjoyed the sailing today. Nine races were completed today. The first time we featured an "outside-in" gate and I must say that it was pretty good as far as keeping incidents at bay (as far as I managed to see). That said, with 17 on the water, that first mark was a bit congested, and after a few races, I pulled out of sailing and became observer for the remainder of the day in order to call those incidents that seemed to be not seen at times. I must say, it did keep me pretty busy and thankyou to every single skipper that was called. Not one example of diessent and everyone went about their penalties pretty much straight away. It was discussed at our last committee meeting that we may require an observer (likely a rotating one from the fleet) in each race to ensure compliance to the rules and keep incidents to a converstaion level only. This is to ensure the enjoyement of the sail day for all sailors and keep behaviours to the level expected of the club - especially in such a public area. We must all remember though, racing is a self policing sport, and the onus is on the skipper to do a penalty as soon as possible without the need to be called for it. A few observations on the "observing" but will do that at the end of the results. I think it was pretty clear to most today in regards to the winner. Stu Dawes sailed a remarkable day. Advantage of being an observer was that I was able to ahve a good look at all the boats at different points in time, and I did see a few things from Stu's racing. His sails always seemed full of air. So many sailors had periods where the wind moved and luffed them, so they bore off or tacked, only for the wind to follow them or die all together and the boat stalled completely. They were then at the mercy of the wind to then change direction in order to get going again. This hardly happened to Stu all day from what I saw. A superior awareness of the wind at any point in time. That said, Stu finished with 13 points from the nine races to come out an overwhelming winner on the day. Second place went to Richard fisher, 8 behind on 21 points. Lisa Blackwood finished in third, on 24 points. In Silver fleet - which has been slightly adjusted to elevate one skipper to gold fleet (Sorry John Hall, the disadvantage of doing so well last year ) - John Short came away with the round win on 12 points. Three points behind was Rod Marshall on 15 points (with a win and second place in the main fleet mind you). Third place was just two further afield - Peter Sylvester, on 17 points. From our DSS sailors (one a RBRYC member and the other three visitors for now...), We had John Penman coming in first, with Nick Connor second, Matt Bugg third and Scott Brain in fourth position. Well done all for a good days sailing. As mentioned previously, I observed for much of the day today and found a few things that may be worth bringing up for us all. Communication is key - Coming to a mark that will get congested, it is essential to sort stuff out before incidents happen. Who has right of way and who needs to give room. We need to read the room a bit as we come to the mark. Those higher risk moves will not win out overall and we are much better to "turn off racing" for a few seconds and just get around that mark clean. Port-Starboard interactions - It was great to see instances such as one that I saw where Mike Hickman (as one example) who was on starboard chose to bear off just a little bit and maintain his momentum when coming close to a port tacker. Massive advantage by keeping momentum and not having someone crash tack right in front of you, giving crappy air. Sometimes the urge to force someone to tack because you are on starboard tack is just not worth it. Incidents in general - Yes, a person that was supposed to give way does a penalty when there is contact between boats, but when the boat on the starboard tack (or in the "right") can also be called to do a penalty for not making an attempt to avoid collision when it is seen that the boat in the wrong has not altered course to avoid contact. You can also be called to do a penalty under rule 14. Luffing another boat - I saw a few instances of luffing another boat. One that seemed quite fine where the windward boat was called with good time as the leeward boat was simply pointing higher and was on their course as such. There was another that I saw though, where the leeward boat turned up towards the windward boat to try to instigate contact. This instance didn't work as they luffed and lost pace, subsequently falling behind the boat to windward - but a boat cannot turn into another to instigate contact and must allow the windward boat room to tack should they need to in order to avoid contact. Coming Up Wednesday will see IOM Handicap at the dam. Button press at 11am. Next Sunday is the Australia Day Shield at the Dam, button press at 1pm Kyle A fairly decent North-Easterly graced the Derwent this morning but it presented itself as a light Northerly with abundant shifts on the dam for today’s IOM handicap racing. Course changes were frequent in the morning session.
You needed both luck and patience on a day like today. Skippers frequently worked themselves into strong positions only to be crueled by a nasty hole in the wind. Both Andrew Wardrop (race #5) and Ian Hey (race #8) were winning their race with a good buffer over the fleet and were within spitting distance of the finish line when they ran out of wind while others cruised past. We welcomed Marcus Inches for his first race today with his dark green K2 (number 49 pictured below). He definitely showed that he knows his way around a yacht course and I think will be a force to be contended with as he gets experience in the sport. It is great to see you on the water Marcus. Third place overall today went to Ian Hey who had a consistent set of results. John Hall tied on points with Bodge but gains second overall by virtue of a nice win in race #7. Lisa took out today’s event, dominating the podium. Quite an impressively sail I think especially as much of the day her handicap meant that she started well after most of the fleet. Congratulations Lisa, John and Ian. Coming up: Sunday: DF95 scratch racing at Risdon Brook Dam. (1:00 button press) Next Wednesday: IOM handicap racing at Risdon Brook Dam (11:00 button press) Shorty It was a beautiful sunny blue sky day, 23 degrees but it felt warmer, and the morning presented a light but persistent WSW of about 3 – 5 knots. We were all expecting a sea-breeze to fill in early but it didn’t arrive until after lunch so until then we did struggle a bit to set a good course.
In the morning the fleet was often condensed when the backmarkers were swept forward when a good gust filled in behind them which led to some tricky mark roundings with boats often stacked 6 or more wide. While situations like this will often lead to contact between boats and sometimes altercations between skippers it is important to minimise disagreement and argument. This can be done by keeping a greater distance between boats, talking to other skippers ahead of an incident, making clear calls when you have right of way and, if there is an incident then limiting discourse to ‘sail number’ protests ‘sail number’. We do try to want to keep Wednesdays as a more casual social sail but the best way to do this is to be careful, obliging and do penalties. The afternoon sea breeze always makes for good sailing and there was some great racing and some close finishes today. The podium was well shared around too with most skippers finding it at some stage. Best today was Andrew Wardrop, four trips to the podium and a good 6 points ahead of the next skipper. But the next 7 skippers were only separated by 5 points showing how close these events are becoming. Jammy Jones took second place with consistent results. Phil Jackman was third and his day featured a really well fought out win in race #4. Coming up: Sunday: Marblehead scratch racing at Montrose (1:00 button press) Wednesday: IOM handicap racing at Risdon Brook Dam (11:00 button press) Shorty A nice day for our first Summer Series sail.
Twelve competitors today, providing a nice tight start line and some very interesting results throughout. The line between the Silver and Gold Fleets was quite blurred with many Silver Fleet sailors enjoying some good success throughout. Race wins today to Ian Hey, John Short, and Peter Sylvester from Silver Fleet. Our day was split up today, with 5 races before lunch and season awards, and then another 7 races afterwards. The format of racing today with the lunch break and chat in the middle seemed to be enjoyed by everyone. After our 12 races today, it was all tied up at the top, with Rod Jackman and Lisa Blackwood tied on 26 points each. Rod won the day on countback, owing to his three race wins compared to Lisa's 1. Coming in third was Michael Hickman, on 35 points. One point to note was that newly minted Gold Fleet sailor, Ricky Price came in a very competitive 4th place today - winning the first race of the day. In Silver Fleet, Ian Hey dominated to win on 20 points. Second and third was also tied up between John Short and John Hall both on 28 points. John Short won on countback winning the last 7 races in a row!!!! His other races weren't sailed due to other commitments. That Venti was absolutely flying today. We were blessed with two Pro's today, with Stuart Dawes sharing duties with Les Hanson - both doing a fine job for us - thanks guys. We also had Phil Turnbull come along and grabbed the BBQ and snags for our lunch today. Thanks for feeding us Phil. In the lunch break, we presented awards for season 2024. Way too many to mention here, so I have included a link to the 2024 Season Awards for people to open up and look through. Congratulations to all award recipients, and to everyone who showed up during the year. Coming up This coming Wednesday will be Mid Week IOM Handicap at the dam, button press at 1pm. Next Sunday will be Marblehead Scratch at Montrose, button press at 1pm. Kyle |
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