Nottingham Sailing Club

[jonathantwite]

Nottingham Sailing Club's season got underway yesterday with the traditional "Bull Day". A large turn out of members came down and helped clean the clubhouse, race-box and sheds and tidy the boat park, cutting back plants, mowing under every boat and doing repairs to the fences and road.

Sailing starts next Saturday with the first Saturday GH series and two more series starting on the Sunday. This year we should have two Moths - Painted Lady and P.T.O. (733) who is hopefully officially becoming someone-else's in the near future. Unfortunately it will be a few weeks before I can get out to race.

[jonathantwite]

Last weekend saw the first competitive outing of Painted Lady at Nottingham in strong, gusty conditions. On Saturday I raced in the Saturday General Handicap series that doubles as the Personal Handicap series (i.e. two series using the same race results, just with different handicap numbers) which is one series I am targeting this year for a good position. With winds approximately 15-25knts I again struggled to keep the boat going forwards upwind. It is amazing what difference the M7 mast makes compared to my old M1. Having seen photos of my horrible sail shapes at MWYC (completely flat at the foot, very full at the top), I corrected this somewhat, but still found myself overpowered. In the end the fleet split into two - the good sailors in a pack at the front, the rest separated and at the back. I won the battle of the back fleet, mostly by hanging in and finishing...

On Sunday was the first trophied event of the season, the Betty Watmough Long Distance GH. For these long distance races, we race upstream all the way to Trent Bridge in the City. The distance to the upstream buoy is approx. 1.5 miles as opposed to the 0.75 miles or so that we normally sail. The further we go, the more chaotic the wind gets and with a stronger than forecast wind of ~15-25knts again the first beat turned into an Olympic standard 25 min slog with major gusts & shifts. 733 had a very long centreboard case and side decks that sloped outwards and so I have developed a Solo/RS300 style of hiking which was very comfortable and effective. 817 however, has Laser-style flat side-decks which are very uncomfortable when using this "supported-bent-knee" style of hiking (no knee support...). In this race, I was trying to hike straight legged, Laser-like, I also have to get used to hiking from behind the centreboard case (817's case is much shorter). I had a better race, but seriously struggled to hike for more than a minute or so at a time... In the end the first 3 placed boats were the only not to capsize (I did my usual - tacked in a hole and fell in backwards). I match-raced a Phantom for the entirety of the race, beating him across the line by 11 secs and by handicap by 12 mins. Unfortunately we were both embarrassed by a Topper who beat us both over the line. The trophy was won by a Solo.

Next up at the club is the Easter Monday Personal Handicap Series (2 from 3) which usually gives very close results. Unfortunately I am away visiting parents over Easter and so will be out of the boat for a few weeks.

Betty Watmough Results 2014 (I was actually in 817...)

[jonathantwite]

On Sunday, Nottingham Sailing club hosted the Annual Trent Tri-Partite competition between the three sailing clubs in Nottingham - Nottingham SC, Attenborough SC and Trent Valley SC. Last year, we became the first away club in the competition's history to win and so started as big favourites. 27 boats entered, including 5 from ASC and 4 from TVSC leading to the first time that we needed 3 different starts in several years. I usually do the event in the N12, but as it has 2 holes where the self bailers should be, I was in the Moth. As typical for the Tri-Partitie, the wind decided to join in the fun too with large blasts of 20knts+ covering the course every time the clouds came over. The wind was from my favourite direction - an easterly - meaning we get waves! real 3 inch waves!

In the first race, I was apparently over the start line, but there was no sound signal, and the recall flag didn't go up for several minutes. Some boats yelled, but with no official signal, I carried on. After the race, the race committee decided that as it was their fault that I didn't know within a reasonable time, they would ignore that it happened and let my result stand. Armed with my new hiking style, I was going very well upwind but struggled downwind. I finished a very respectable (for me) 12th from 22.

For the second race, the wind was spending longer in its high-speed mode giving the bigger boats a hard time. I had a very good race and would have got a very good position, except for a down-wind capsize (I tried to gybe off of a slightly by-the-lee course) and an upwind capsize when a gust hit during a tack and I had very little energy left. Final position 15th.

2 mins before the start of the final race, a huge blast came through flattening several of the boats reaching behind the line, myself included. I managed to start and had a good beat, but just as I reached the windward mark, another huge blast came through I was unfortunate as the Phantoms and Vareo in my start had rounded the buoy, and the comets were still back on the beat with the other starts. I was rounding and just couldn't keep it up and ended up with the mast stuck in the bottom and the wind pinning the hull down. When the rescue boat helped me up, the mast was completely flooded with water and making quite a spectacular fountain effect. In the end, if I had survived that one bit, I probably could have got a good result, as I was doing better than a lot of the boats in a straight line.

I finished in 15th place overall (from 27, 25 started the required 2 races). The individual prize was taken by a Laser sailor from Trent Valley (three wins, and also won all three races last year). The club prize was won by Nottingham, we had the 2-6th positions. Painted Lady gained several new admirers, some who had never seen a BM before, some who had only seen them years ago.

Trent Tri-Partite Results 2014

[jonathantwite]

Video taken from the front of one of the Lasers. Doesn't really do justice to the amount of wind there was at times, except when you consider the skill of some of the sailors going swimming...

Youtube Video

[jonathantwite]

Sunday saw the maiden victory for Painted Lady at Nottingham SC. I had been instructing on our L1 course over the weekend, but with the participants happily drifting around in toppers, I had the opportunity to compete in the last club race of the day. The race was a pursuit race consisting of myself, a streaker, a solo and a laser in drifting conditions with a few small puffs. I started first, 30 seconds before the streaker and solo and although the other boats frequently swapped places, they never caught me up. Rounding the last mark, I had extended my lead to 3 minutes 45 and won from the streaker, laser, then solo. This was also my first win at the club in a boat own by myself, having only won a 3-boat N12 race in a very nice borrowed boat.

Mid Pursuit Series