Saturday’s sailing proved to be nearly ideal with a breeze that looked like, and was forecast, to stay under ten knots for most of the day. However, as the day progressed, the breeze filled in to between 10 to 15 kn and we enjoyed three races with mid twenties temperature.

And it was a day of firsts with Peter Creak (Radial) racing for the first time this year and completing a trifecta of generations of sailors as he raced Harry sailing a 4.7, for the first time, and Tony (Sabre). Ollie also had a good day managing to keep ahead of Ron F’s Aero 7 in two of the three races. Even your scribe who basically sailed two races in last place had a first, as prior to the first start, he was trailed by what could have been a stingray, but what I really think was probably a four foot skate, for over five minutes with the fish approaching as close as two feet behind the rudder. Even when I did a big circle and headed the other way it followed me around finally leaving when I approached slightly shallower water. I’ve seen dolphins before, but not a skate. Other sailors were Lucy (Sabre and taking a break from packing) and your scribe (Sabre).

Peter E was the sole RO for the day, which was fortunately benign, and set a windward and return course with a twist. Apparently a volcanic event had taken place and a peninsula had been thrust into the bay as far as a yellow mark nearly in line with the windward course. You were obviously not allowed to sail through the peninsula. Your scribe was thwarted from calling for water when he couldn’t get close enough to another boat to justify the hail.

In Division 1, Ron F was ahead of Peter C in all three races by margins of 1.24, 1.00 and 57 seconds. Division 2 race 1 saw Ollie ahead of Lucy by 30 secs with Tony 9 secs behind Lucy, Harry 11 secs after him and your scribe a minute behind Harry. Race 2 had Ollie again leading Lucy by 34 secs with Tony 27 secs later. The scribe was a minute behind Tony and a minute and a half ahead of Harry as the breeze increased. Race 3 had Ollie in front of Tony by 18 secs.

Great thanks to Peter E who ran the races single handedly and to Julie for meritorious production of dim sims. Anne watched over all boats and kept times.

Our thoughts are with Glen whose mother in law died on Friday night. Nevertheless he came to see if we needed assistance launching boats.
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Coming up:

Saturday 8 November 2025.
1400 Ozone series continues.
0900 Junior and Senior L2S

Saturday 15 November 2025.
1400 Ozone series continues (includes Commodore Cup).
0900 Junior and Senior L2S

With no sailing over the winter your scribe had a bit of spare time which he put to use by borrowing a couple of books from the Club so he could learn to navigate. Here are some of the things he learnt:
More use for fingers:
The three finger rule. Three fingers horizontally at arm’s length cover roughly 6 degrees. An object, such as a lighthouse which has its height noted on a chart, and which appears ‘three fingers’ high is about 10 times as far away as its height.