Bank Holiday attracts the FF Crowds

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Sunday’s racing started with seven Flying 15 hitting the start line with 12 knots of wind from the north. The first race saw many position changes up the first leg, with 4027 leading a closely bunched fleet around the top mark. More close racing ensured but 4027 covered the fleet and went on to win, followed by 3563 and then 3341.

The second race started with one recall (3563 with helm and crew swapping) and 4027 being squeezed out of the line. Despite similar conditions to race 1, the fleet spread out with 4011 taking a commanding lead, followed by 3725 (welcome back to the Hall’s after their winter hibernation) and 4027 just holding off 3341 for third place. The second race also saw the Wright Swimming Cup being award to Alastair (sailing as crew) who tried hiking the boat flat on a three sail reach without using the hiking straps … splash.

The wooden top 3341 appeared, now with it’s mast in a more normal position rather than being miles too far forward for no good reason at the Open meeting.

It was a red letter day as Hospital Tinsley managed 2 races back to back, without St Johns or A+E being needed!! Probably means an air ambulance next time!

Roll on next time!!

Southern’s Arrival Information

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Below is a note we are publishing explaining our launching procedures for the upcoming open meeting. Club members please note that we will be rigging in the car park beyond the club house launching from the pontoon normally used for ribs. It would help if you could be at the club in good time so we can moor some boats out before the briefing on Saturday.

Don’t forget we have Part 1 of the Fleet Championships this Sunday (31st March) to get some practice in before this event.

See you on the water soon.

Mike Clapp, Fleet Captain

DWSC-FFW-Arrival-and-Launching

Fleet Championships – 31st March and 23rd June, 2019

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The 2019 Fleet Championships will be run in a similar form to the last couple of years.   It is planned for two Sundays in between the Winter and Spring Series and the Spring and Summer Series.  Four races are scheduled for each Sunday with two back to back in the morning and two back to back in the afternoon.  Up to four discards will be applied so it will be possible to win the Championships based on just one of the two Sundays or just the morning races.

The Notice of Race has now been published here: –

https://www.dwsc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/FleetChamps19NoR.doc

and the Sailing Instructions are here: –

https://www.dwsc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Fleet-Championships-SIs-2019.doc

If you have any questions please let me know.

I hope to see as many of you as possible racing on these days as the morning races also count towards the Fairweather series.

 

Mike Clapp

Fleet Captain

FF # 4027

2019 Fairweather Series

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For many years the fleet has run an additional series over the summer months in order to encourage a greater turnout on certain dates.  This is known as the Fairweather Series. At the recent Fleet AGM we decided to experiment with a slight change of format of this for the 2019 season.  We have reduced the number of Sundays this covers but increased the number of races .  The dates this year will be: –

31st March – the first two races of the Fleet Championships to count

12th May – to coincide with the “Push the Boat Out” weekend

23rd June – the two morning races of the second part of the Fleet Championships to count

and 22nd September.

The results from the Sunday morning races on these dates will be combined together to determine the Fairweather Champion using a discard rate of 6 out of 8 to count.  This is defined in the Notice of Race shown below.

This series is targeted at fleet members who cannot commit to racing every Sunday but would like to target their attendances on days when there should be a better turnout.  I have therefore tried to select dates when there are not major open meetings on elsewhere.

If you have any questions about this series please let me know.  I hope to see you on the water soon.

Regards

 

Mike Clapp

Fleet Captain

FF #4027

 

NoR FF Fairweather Series 2019

Flying Fifteen Training Day – 16th March

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Charles Apthorp has volunteered to lead a training session for DWSC Flying Fifteen Sailors on Saturday 16th March to help prepare us for the sailing season ahead. After an initial on-shore briefing and discussion, exercises will be performed afloat which are likely to include start practice; tacking and gybing practice; etc. If there is any particular skills you want to hone up on please let us know before the day. The intention is to video these sessions and provide a debrief over lunch and at the end of the day.

We will kick off with a discussion in the Wet Bar starting at 10.00 am. Please be rigged but not changed by this time.

Please could you let me know whether you would like to join us for this training day. If you have any questions please call Michael Clapp on 077 6468 1410.

Regards

Mike Clapp

Fleet Captain

FF# 4027

Castle Cup – Sunday 13th Trophy

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As we discussed last Sunday, at the fleet AGM, this coming Sunday is 13th January so we will be racing for the Castle Cup.  The boat that gets the best combined score from the two races gets to hold the trophy until the next time we get a Sunday 13th.  Hopefully this will encourage enough of you out so we meet the five boat criteria to get our own start.

The fleet AGM produced a number of interesting ideas – I will try to get the minutes to all of you as soon as possible, including to those who were unable to attend.

If anyone is aware of any Flying Fifteens that might be about to come on the market, please let me know, as I have a number of people interested.

See you on the water soon.

Regards

Mike Clapp

Fleet Captain

Flying Fifteen No 4027.

Club Loan Boat Update

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Please find below an update about our loan boats from Phil Tinsley.  With all this effort going into maintaining these boats we could do with getting them used more.  If you know of anyone who would like to try out a Flying Fifteen please let Mike Firth or myself know.

Regards

Mike Clapp, Fleet Captain

 

Dear FF Fleet members

 

Very many thanks to all the fleet’s members who have donated old sails to be sold for the benefit of the club’s 2 FF boats.

These are used to allow trial sails in a FF, and hopefully encourage the triallists to join the fleet.

We had 4 leads from the Southampton Show, one of which is proper interested and will be having a trial sail in the spring.

 

We have 2 club FF’s – a raceable silver boat 3316 “Gerry Sheard” a 1990 Porter copy of a Windebank/Ovington 9 hull, and an older more recreational hull 3024 “Flouride” a Trenowth from 1985.

Your generosity has allowed the purchase of a new cover for one boat, and the other has a nearly new cover – both branded DWSC club FF.

Gerry Sheard has a good set of Goachers, ex my silver 3341, and Flouride a reasonable set of P+B sails ex 3888.

At present BOTH club boats have garish line green/yellow spinnakers, which should act as L plates, or inexperienced warnings, to the rest of us.

There is also nearly £400 being added to the held funds for upkeep of these club FF’s – funds held by Roger our fleet treasurer.

 

Today a clear out of the club boats has revealed 8 further sails to be sold for the fleet’s benefit – thanks to all donors.

A couple of suggestions:

  1. I am aware that there are some new members to the fleet, and can I suggest you review your sails – some of the most recently donated sails are ex John Hansen in 3954, and still in very good condition.  We have a good mainsail, a super 2 window genoa and a blue spinnaker for a chute, all by Hyde.
  1. If any fleet member has a redundant sail which they would be happy to donate to benefit the fleet’s FFs upkeep, we would be very grateful. Please see Mike Clapp the fleet captain, or Mike Firth who oversees the Club loan FF’s
  2. Lastly, this is the last group of sails I going to sell for the fleet, and therefore we need an EBay savvy fleet member to take over the sale of the future sails. I will produce a procedural note for the volunteer.

 

Regards

 

Philip Tinsley

On behalf of the FF Fleet.

 

 

Fairweather Series Results

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Time to catch up with some general Flying Fifteen matters!  Roger sent me the results of the Fairweather Series a few weeks ago: –

Apologies for keeping you all waiting.   We will award some prizes for this at the fleet AGM which I think is due during December.  I’ll try to set a date for this shortly.

Roger has also updated the fleet trophy list: –

Trophies 2018.2019 Sep

The water level seems to have been fairly steady over the last couple of weeks so with the repositioned pontoon there should be no excuses for not attending Sunday racing.  If you have not seen the instructions from Mervyn please let me know.

See you on the water soon.

Regards

Mike Clapp

Fleet Captain.

 

Club and Fleet Championships Part 2

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The next two Sundays are major events as far a club racing is concerned.

 Tomorrow (Sunday 16th) is the Club Championships.  This has the intention of finding the best sailor in the club by running a series of Handicap races.  The format is the same as last year with four races over different courses.  All are sailed using an average lap time basis so there will be a gate you have to pass through on every upwind leg.  There is no set number of laps so you carry on sailing until the shorten course symbol is hoisted and you will be finished the next time you pass through the gate.  The courses are in the SI’s which are here: –

 https://www.dwsc.co.uk/racing-2/club-racing-2/club-series-docs/

 We start with a triangle at 1030 am, then have a windward-leeward course, have a break for lunch and then do a trapezoid and finally a P.  3 out of 4 races count.  I will encourage the race officer to give a briefing at 9.30 am.  The forecast for tomorrow may give a Flying Fifteen a chance of doing well in this!

The following Sunday (23rd September) is the rerun of Part 2 of the Fleet Championships (it was postponed due to lack of wind in June).  The Sailing Instructions are very similar to normal club Sunday racing and can be found on the same web page.  There are four races next Sunday with two back to back in the morning and two back to back in the afternoon.  It is four out of eight races to count and no-one established a clear lead in the first part of the event so the title is still very much open.

The first two races on that Sunday also count towards the Fairweather trophy.  The current results for this are shown in the screenshot below.   With all those incentives to get out Sailing that Sunday can we get the fleet into double figures?

See you on the water soon.

 

Mike Clapp

Flying Fifteen Fleet Captain