This week we hosted the State OK Dinghy and State Fireball Titles and with their fleets and our own for Saturday club racing had over forty boats on the water. With that amount of boats we needed all our patrol craft together with Scotty and John on jet skis to safely run the races. Thanks are due to Peter Ellenby for his magnificent organisation backed up by his role as RO. All races ran on time and smoothly. Congratulations to all members who volunteered. On shore Julie also led the team as she organised food for all and provided for two BBQ’s (breakfast and lunch) on the Sunday for which she co-opted Peter to run. She could not have done it without the assistance of the Salty B!tches and we thank them for their efforts as part of our Club. In the tower Anne did the watching and took on the scribing role when all radio messages are recorded in the event that exact times of events are needed. Your scribe, under tutorage from Alex, did all race creation, entry and results.

Congratulations are also due to our sailors who took part Lucy and David May sailing the officially recorded heaviest Fireball in the world were competitive in most races and were not the last in any completed race nor over all. Jamie B (after a break of over a year with back problems) sailed his OK to eighth position out of 15. Special congratulations to Mike W who took the OK Dinghy State Title.

In Club racing we had Div 1 consisting of Aidan, Callum and Peter C sailing Radials who were joined by sailors visiting from St Leonards in Jason and Ben both on relatively recently acquired Radials and frequent visitor Danny R. sailing, this time, his Aero 9. Div 2 had Harry C on a 4.7 and the 420 skippered by Andrew G and crewed by Lew W. Bobby F-W and Henry S sailed Opti’s in
Div 3.

Division 1 race 1 saw Aidan’s Radial just tip out the bigger and supposedly faster Aero 9 sailed by Danny R. Aidan was 13 seconds ahead with Danny a mere 17 seconds up on Callum. Peter C was 31 seconds later ahead of Ben by about 2 minutes who led Jason by a further two minutes. In the second race the finishing order was the same with Aidan 63 seconds ahead of Danny who was just 5 seconds ahead of Callum who led Peter C by nearly two minutes. Ben was 1 minute 12 seconds behind with Jason 3 minutes later.

Division 2 race 1 saw Harry C, with some astute reading of the course instructions, nearly 8 minutes up on the 420 (who had been advised of Harry’s astute, and correct, reading prior to the race but may have ignored it). Harry retired for race 2 leaving the 420 as the lone racer. Division 3 only did the one race with Bobby 5 minutes to the good of Henry. Thanks to Molly who, deprived of a RIB to follow the Opti’s took out the Club Sabre to keep them company.

Coming up:

Saturday 28 March 2026.
1400 Bengalut Balug series continues.
0900 Junior and Senior L2 Sail

Saturday 4 April 2026.
1400 Bengalut Balug series continues (includes 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:
The three fingers rule:
Three fingers at arm’s length cover roughly 6 degrees. An object such as a lighthouse that appears “three fingers” high is about ten times as far away as its height.