On the Saturday before Christmas we had a beautiful day for sailing, but unfortunately, with only seven sailors able to make it on the day. The wind was from the south and a steady 10 to 15kn though increasing later. In Div 1 Aero’s were sailed by Tim W and visitor Ron F. Laser R’s were sailed by Peter C and Nate B. In Div 2 Sabres were sailed by your scribe and Geoff D who is now back sailing, while Harry C made up Div 3.

Two races were sailed with the same results in each race. In Div 1 Ron led Tim (60 secs race 1 and 22 seconds race 2) who led Peter C (42s, 53s), who led Nate B (6 s, 53s). Likewise in Div 2 Geoff led your scribe by 34 seconds in race 1 and a couple of minutes in race 2 despite the scribe pulling off two of his best starts for the year. Harry was the sole Div 3 competitor.

Tony as RO and Billie T as his driver did a great job setting the course and running the race while Peter V made a welcome return after a knee replacement to drive the rescue boat.

Thanks to Anne and Alex in the tower and to Julie for first aid to Zeth who put a hole in his hand while doing some running repairs to his Laser 2, including adding a trap so brother Zeke could try out the boat. The hole didn’t stop Zeth as they tried a reach out to the channel marker and back to see if everything, including the hand, worked.

Wishing all and sundry a happy Christmas and safe New Year.


Coming up:

Saturday 27 December 2025.
1400 Lady Nelson series continues if boats wish to sail (but it is the second day of the Boxing Day test).
(The day, it is rumoured, that Andrew Dix’s new Sabre will hit the water)

Saturday 3 January 2026.
1400 Lady Nelson series continues (includes Red Cross Trophy and Boat Club Cup).

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:
You can also use your sextant to assist in calculating your longitude (with the aid of your trusty Timex set to prime meridian time). Noon where you are at is when the sun is directly overhead and a vertical stick casts no shadow, alternatively you can use your sextant to show the highest point of the sun and note that time as noon. With your Timex set to prime meridian time (Greenwich) you can tell how many hours apart the time is and since you know that the earth’s circumference is 21,639 nautical miles and it takes 24 hours to do a rotation some simple sums will tell how many nautical miles you are from the prime meridian. (This is very simplified and not to be relied upon as actually you work out degrees remembering that the sun moves 15 degrees of longitude every hour and you look up the answer in an Almanac which also gives you correction tables for things like ‘a twenty four hour day can actually be up to 15 minutes shorter or longer’).