Return to the Beach.

July 25th The long awaited Osprey Nationals started yesterday and a fleet of 33 has arrived to compete against each other. I was hoping to play a full and active role this year as this is the first Nationasl hosted by Porthpean that I have been free to attend all week. Unfortunately my heart attack has prevented that but I am managing to play some minor part in it and the walk down to the Club surely must be doing me some good. I am pleased to say that health wise it is a case of so far is so good. I am complying with doctor’s orders, taking the medication and I am feeling very well indeed, in fact so well that I almost consider myself a fraud in that respect. I suppose only time will tell, but at this stage everything is positive. Well the long hard work and planning by the Chamiponship Committee has come to and end and the “fun?” part of the week is now here. We have 2 Committee boats, loaned by David Phyall and Ken Higman, which will be the platforms for the race team, headed by Ken Fobbester & Ron Barrett. We have 4 fast RIBS headed up by Nigel & James and for the first time ever, a tractor that has been loaned to the Club for the week, driven by Andrew Kendall, which is proving invaluable for hauling all the boats up after the racing. The shore side is headed up by Kay & Gary, plus probably the most important job of all, the catering, which has been ably coordinated by Ray & Maria. There are also many Club members helping out, with different jobs, on safety boats or beach duty on the water and the bar and galley on shore. Once again the Club and its members are rallying around to make ensure another successful Championship event. The first Championship race took place yesterday in perfect sailing conditions, with a 12 knot northerly breeze. The fleet sailed out beyond the mussel farms and were given a triangular course of mile legs which was sailed Olympic style. Commiserations must go to Simon Pryce who sails his Osprey during the week at Poole. Simon was sporting a brand new mylar mainsail and was lying about 5th when the sail split in two. One of the seams had come unstuck, rendering the sail completely useless and forcing him to take an early retirement. Simon has been loaned another new sail from a different sail maker which will be used today when 2 Championship races will be held. Fortunately for Simon there was only one race yesterday whereas there will be 2 races today and again on Tuesday. Yesterday was also perfect for anyone down at the Club. The beach was packed, those who wanted to sunbathe or swim could do so. The sky by the afternoon was cloudless and the après sailing atmosphere for the Commodore’s reception in the evening was perfect, with most of out guests taking the opportunity to sit outside basking in the late evening sunshine to the backdrop of the one of the nicest views in the country. The weather is set to be similar for the next few days. Whether or not we will get as much sun is debatable but the winds should continue to be light northerly / westerly breezes all week which in turn will make launching and recovery fairly easy. I noticed that several of the Osprey sailors have come to an arrangement with Petherick’s car park and a range of camper vans and tents are lined up along the perimeter of the car park, bringing a carnival atmosphere to the event.

July 18th Today was my first time down at the Club since my heart attack and it was great to see so many of you and what’s more you all seemed genuinely pleased to see me as well. So a quick update on my health. It is only 5 days since having a stent fitted and I am feeling very well, but a word of caution here, from the booklets I brought home from the hospital is a statistic that 1 in 5 people having my treatment have to return within 6 months for further treatment. So whilst feeling optimistic I also realise that I may not be entirely over the hurdle just yet. Sue & I walked down to the Club after our lunch, taking about 45 minutes to do the journey. Fortunately it is all down hill and then Stewart very kindly drove us home after the racing. My little stay in hospital has lead to the nice bonus of losing 5 lbs or so in weight, which is no bad thing. Now the challenge is to keep that weight off and maybe lose a lb or so more. Does this mean no more of Jenny’s bacon butties? Hmm easy to say yes now but when that aroma greets you as you walk into the Clubhouse then maybe I will succumb and have just 1 economy version! Well the racing or what I saw of it was fast & furious today, with a brisk south westerly keeping everybody on their toe straps, well not everyone as for some it was a ducking in the water that caused them some grief. I only saw part of the afternoon racing but by the time we arrived it was apparent that Allan Orton had carved out a massive lead on the rest of the fleet and the Tasars, all 4 of them were spread out over quite a large area, with Jeremy & Suzanne way out in front, building a good lead over Denis & Brian, which was up to 2 minutes by the end of the race. Justin & Donna were another 3 minutes further back but at one time were neck and neck with Chris & Tony, but an argument with the windward mark in the gusty conditions resulted in a capsize and a bang on the head for Chris, thus putting paid to their race. Allan’s dominance in his Contender was very convincing finishing some 9 minutes in front of the Laser of Simon Pryce. Janet & Pete Barnes took a well deserved 3rd, as they powered along on the spinnaker reaches. In fact there were 4 spinnaker boats out today, but the only other one to finish was the Merlin of Steve & Polly and they too spent some time in the water dealing with a capsized boat. Andrew & Sarah Kendall found the conditions too much when their repaired tiller extension gave up the ghost, making boat control very difficult. Richard & James King’s Merlin was another boat that suffered a capsize though theirs was rather terminal as one of the stern buoyancy bags broke free from its fastenings, causing the boat to sink in the stern. Only the attention of the safety boat saved them from real trouble and had to help them stay afloat to get them ashore. Simon Pryce was in fact over 3 minutes in front of Brian Reeves who in turn was 4 minutes in front of Tim Baily, who I suspect must have capsized a time or two out there. Having sailed a Laser once or twice I know that in today’s conditions they are extremely difficult to keep upright. There were 5 Tasars out for the morning race and the victory went to Denis & Brian by a margin of 2 minutes over Jeremy who is trying to do the morning series with his son Finn crewing for him. Their combined weight proving to be too light in the fresh conditions; however they just managed to hold off Justin & Donna by only 1 second. Probably the closest finish between two boats this year. Chris & Luke who won their first race last week retired in this race, whereas Chris & Tony persevered to finish 2 minutes behind the 2nd & 3rd boats. Allan had a good challenge from Stacey this morning, but still won by a margin of 1 ½ minutes. I’m not sure if Allan out sailed Stacey or whether Stacey had a capsize, but nevertheless still a good win for Allan in his new boat. Steve & Polly had a sound 3rd, not surprisingly finishing behind the Contenders but still a couple of minutes in front of Janet & Pete in their Kestrel. Just behind the Kestrel was a fleet of 4 Lasers, lead by Simon, though he was pushed hard by Steve Coello who finished only 8 seconds behind him and Steve was only 9 seconds in front of Tim Baily, so those 3 had an extremely close race. I know that there was no sailing last Wednesday as the very high tide, breaking on the wall posed what could have been boat damaging conditions. It was quite sailable but the launching and recovery was the problem so maybe quite wisely the racing was cancelled. Well the long awaited Osprey Nationals will be on us this time next week. At the moment the entry level is disappointingly low but we are still hopeful that the Mounts Bay fleet will turn up en masse to swell the fleet. After all most of them can travel up and down each day, this negating the need for accommodation. Anyway most of our organisation is in place so all we need is good weather, good competitors and good will to make another successful Championship.

July 14th Hello everyone, as you may deduce I am back home again and feeling fit and healthy, which seems incredible but I have been extremely lucky and feel very grateful to have emerged from my escapade without too much damage. I would like to say a big thank you to all of you who sent me get well cards and made endless telephone calls to Sue enquiring after me. It was all very touching. Porthpean at times is more than a sailing Club, more a family, a family I feel privileged to belong to. I would especially like to pay tribute to Maria who was watching over me at lunch time on the Sunday, realised that I had a major problem and insisted that I get to Penrice hospital immediately, and then drove me there whilst Mike Voyzey collected Sue from home to rendezvous with us there. Well as most of you know I actually had a heart attack. I had been experiencing some chest pains occasionally during the week and had initially dismissed them as just a pain. By Saturday I suspected that I might be suffering from angina so I “googled” it and realised that I had some of the angina symptoms and so I intended to make a doctors appointment on the following Monday to try and get it sorted. However events short circuited that lot and I ended up in hospital much sooner than expected. I suppose the heavy weather and a capsize on Sunday accelerated my problem. The extra energy used dealing with a capsize was maybe the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had been thinking of changing my traveller system for a while and on Saturday replaced the old traveller worn sheets with shiny new ones and everything looked good and all appeared to work well. Unfortunately Sunday dawned with quite a fresh south westerly and right from the stat of the race we found that the new traveller sheets appeared to be too slippery and would not jam in the cleats, thus making sailing upwind very difficult. Somewhere on the 2nd beat, we needed to tack and I noticed that the leeward traveller sheet which would soon become the windward traveller sheet was jammed. Foolishly I tacked without compensating by letting off the mainsheet, with the result that as we tacked the full force of the wind blew against the main before we had chance to properly cross the boat and hike out on the new windward side, resulting in a silly capsize. Unfortunately we messed around for quite a while with me trying to get to grips with the dagger board. Eventually we recovered the boat and I made the decision to abandon the race and sail for the shore, which was as well as during the capsize quite a large volume of water had entered the buoyancy chambers and made the boat quite unstable. I now realise that I need some proper seals on the new hatch covers that I fitted a few weeks ago. We landed, bailed the boat out and made our way up the slip for lunch and by this time I was feeling quite a bit of pain in my chest and left arm, I was also feeling quite poorly and had no appetite for my lunch. Maria had noticed my discomfort and from her nursing training realised that I was having a heart attack and stressed to me how important it was to get to hospital. By this time I knew she was right and was more than happy for her to take me to Penrice. The staff at Penrice acted immediately when I told them my symptoms and in no time at all I was stretched out on a couch and was hooked up to an ECG and my blood pressure was taken. The ECG was non conclusive and my blood pressure was normal but they insisted that I get to Treliske ASAP and an ambulance was dispatched to whip us down there. The journey down proved quite frightening and to cap it all I was also sick,and I was literally feeling that I was dying. Eventually we arrived at Treliske and after quite a delay I was een by a doctor. A blood test was taken and the results from that indicated that I had indeed suffered a heart attack, but at this time there was no indication as how bad it may be. I was whisked away to the Coronary dept, where I was hooked up to an ECG machine plus heart monitors and blood pressure machine. I was given certain drugs and injections that reduced my blood pressure and slowed my heart rate down. Sometime in the night the pain eventually eased and I awoke the next day, Monday, feeling much better. I was told that I would need an angiogram to assess any heart damage and to see what was happening with my arteries. Treliske Coronary dept is extremely busy and the earliest I could have an angiogram would be Thursday 8th. Meanwhile I was kept on a regime of drugs to keep my blood thin and my heart rate low. Apart from that I felt very well in myself as maybe Chris & Tony can testify as they visited me on the Wednesday. I was told by the staff that because I didn’t smoke, and that I was very fit for my age then I might escape with very little damage. Unfortunately, my Angiogram was cancelled due to some emergency cases that cropped up and I was then deferred to this week. Unfortunately once you are in the hospital then you must stay there until treated and released, otherwise you go to the back of the queue again, so I ended up being transferred from ward to ward until my procedure could take place which was yesterday 13th. Well I won’t go in to detail here what happens in the theatre, suffice to say that the Consultant found that one of my arteries had a blockage whilst the others were clear. Fortunately he couldn’t see any damage to my heart and the blocked artery has been expanded and a stent has been fitted. It’s absolutely marvellous what they can do nowadays and within a few weeks I should be back to full strength. So there we are, another episode in my life’s history, but fortunately for me one that I should fully recover from. It’s quite spooky really that any of us can leave our homes in the morning to go somewhere and end up in a hospital. I know it happens to 1000s every day and I hope that it doesn’t happen to you. It’s not the best of experiences and its an experience that I don’t want to repeat. Just as a footnote I would also like to say how well I was treated by all the staff at Penrice & Treliske. They were always courteous, friendly and responded well to various amounts of humour. Their professionalism can not be faulted and they nearly all work 12 hour shifts. Yes despite the seriousness of it all there was still time for a bit of fun and I really do have some hilarious tales of various episodes that happened, especially the Dad’s Army night. It was so way out but true. The food also was quite good. I was always given a menu of a reasonable choice of food. The servings weren’t enormous, but the variety was good, especially considering it was all produced on a budget of £2 per head; far less than is allowed for HM prisoners. Overall a very chastening experience and not one I hope to repeat, but to anyone else who is unfortunate enough to be taken ill, don’t worry; The National Health is still a first Class organisation.

June 30th A rather overcast sky greeted us tonight, a marked difference than what we have had lately, but together with a reasonable south westerly promised some good racing conditions. We have been sailing for 3 months so far this year and tonight was the first south westerly that we have had in all that time. The weather pattern for the season so far had been predominantly northerlies, which kept the temperature down, but now it looks like it may be swinging back to the normal weather pattern. Well we will see over the next few weeks whether we can keep this exceptional summer weather or revert to the usual Cornish weather. Nevertheless we had 16 boats out again to race, unfortunately still only 2 Tasars, but then 2 of our normal Tasar helms were in the safety boat whilst others are on holiday or otherwise engaged. Jeremy & Mike took control of the RIB tonight and set a triangle that due to the breeze direction gave us our first beat of the season across the bay from left to right. The course was a delight for the spinnaker boats as for once they were all able to fly their spinnakers on all the reaches and this was reflected with 4 of the 7 spinnaker boats taking the first 4 places. When we left the beach to head out to the race course the breeze seemed to be a good force 2 to 3 but unfortunately before we had completed the 1st round had eased somewhat, which prevented our Tasar from planning, which in turn took some of the shine of the evening and with only 2 Tasars out took away some of the normal cut and thrust that marks close Tasar racing. With 16 boats on the course it still requires a good start to be made to be able to get a good position. The start line had very little bias on it and the start line was a little short so a port hand flyer was out of the question, so we queued up with quite a few other boats close to the pin end of the line and came out at the gun sailing agonisingly slowly and we were nearly sailed over by Janet’s Kestrel, which although late for the line did come in at a very good rate of knots, but we managed to build up enough head of steam to hold her back. We were upwind of Ron’s Scorpion but he was able to sail much closer to the wind than us and we had to tack off to clear our wind, leaving Steve & Nigel and Ron & Michelle to blast out to sea. By the time we closed at the windward mark, we had pulled away from Ron and even caught the RS, port and starboard, but the RS just dipped us and could still make the windward mark. We rounded close behind them and I was hoping that the reach to the beach marks was close enough for the Tasar to climb up and sail over them before their spinnaker could give them full power, but alas, the reach was not close enough and they were suddenly off and all we could do was to follow, whilst keeping an eye on Ron & Michelle who were behind us with their spinnaker flying. Chris & Tony had a good first round but somehow slipped back quite a way as the race progressed and on corrected time would have dropped into 11th place, so maybe the new racing launching trolley needs some tuning yet. Ron & Michelle Barrett, only seem to be able to sail on Wednesdays, but are leading the series after only 2 races with 2 second places making their consistency felt. Their new sails combination make the boat stand out wherever it is on the course. Allan was missing tonight, so while he was away the others made hay, with Steve & Nigel surging away but only finished 10seconds ahead of Ron & Michelle on corrected time. Indeed before the results were worked out, quite a few expected the Scorpion to have taken the win. Anna & Liz consolidated their 3rd of last week by taking another 3rd tonight, comfortably ahead by over a minute, of the RS Feva, tonight having the experience of guest helm Paul Beacon. John Hill was the first of the single handers to make his mark, a minute down on the Feva, but 2 minutes to the good on the Kestrel of Jan & Pete. I don’t know what happened to the Kestrel as they had a very good start and first beat, but somehow slipped back elsewhere in the race. Tim Baily was the best of the 3 Lasers, but tonight wasn’t Laser weather as Tim could only make 7th some 23 seconds behind the Kestrel We only had one capsize tonight and that went to our new sailing members Jim Sharratt and Steve Pitcher in their RS400. They were caught by one of the few gusts we got on the first reach into the beach marks, were unable to bear away and ended up dropping the boat into the water. They did right it ok but lost too much time to be able to make up enough time to give them a better result than 11th. However they are keen and I think that they are enjoying their sailing, which is certainly different than sailing catamarans. The forecast for the weekend promises a bit more wind than we have had of late so it will give us another opportunity to stretch our legs, but I don’t think it will be a shorts day. The Osprey Nationals will be only 3 weeks away and the time is rushing towards it. At this stage we still don’t know how many Ospreys will come. There is quite a fleet at Mounts Bay so hopefully we should get at least half a dozen if not more from there, but we are hopeful of a fleet of at least 40. These really are magnificent boats when seen in full flight. I do believe that Anna may be sailing in one also, but I must see her to confirm it. I also think that Simon Pryce will be crewing in one also so we may have some vested interest in the results. The Cornwall schools sailing regatta took place today at Restronguet. Adam Eastham was sailing there representing Fowey School. Fowey ended up in 2nd place, only 1 point behind the winners who I believe was one of the Truro Schools, so a very good achievement for Fowey school as I believe that many of the Truro school sailors sail at Restronguet anyway so have the comfort of knowing their waters better than most of the visitors.

June 27th What a disaster today turned out to be. No I don’t mean England losing in the World Cup, that result was to be expected. Come on how did anyone without rose tinted spectacles expect anything else. Our team of fantastic players could only draw 1 all with the USA, and 0-0 against Algeria and then to cap it all just 1-0 against Slovenia. What hope do you thing we had against a proper team. Well at least if they get their finger out they may be home in time for Coronation Street. No the real disaster today was my yellow sailing shorts. Today they finally gave in to the inevitable and ripped as can be seen from the picture alongside. I have had them for over 10 years, but they have at long last torn, leaving me exposed. I suppose I will have to wear my Speedos in future. Thank goodness they are coming back into fashion. Here we are almost at the end of June and the fantastice weather that we have had all month is still going on and today was another example of that. Yesterday was probably hotter and almost without wind so was perfect for Tom Pope’s wedding and what a perfect setting he had with the Club looking resplendent with it’s marquee and the Club House all decorated up. This morning was an all hands on work time with the Club slowly being turned back to a Sailing Club. We had an almost inevitable delay due to early lack of wind, but as mostly happens a nice little breeze turned up to get us sailing again. This time it was a light southerly breeze, not much more than 5knots at the most. Nevertheless a small but perfectly formed fleet of 13 launched in a falling tide to do battle, whilst a few more sat around in the morning sun, waiting to see if we became becalmed. Nigel & Maria were our safety boat crew today. Maria has been taking a level 2 powerboat course at Anna & Liz’s sailing school and took the lead role of driving the RIB today, whilst Nigel directed the course laying. Some talk had been mooted earlier about doing 2 races back to back so that we could finish earlier so that those who wanted to watch the football could get home in time. In the event the decision to race as per normal was the correct one. The start line had enough port bias on it to take a chance and we managed to clear the entire fleet at the start. The Tasar fleet was again very small, with only 3 of us out, but Jeremy had a secret weapon in the shape of his young son Finn, together being a rather light team that I am sure in a few weeks will be very potent in the light stuff. Ken & I arrived at the windward mark 1st only a few boat lengths in front of Jeremy & Finn, and I expected them to close us down on the 2 reaches, but, maybe our experience outweighed the lighter crew and we started the 2nd round with a reasonable lead. It was during the 2nd set of reaches that the wind started to play silly games, it disappeared for a while, then came back from a different direction, disappeared again, before coming back to the original direction. For a while panic and confusion reined, but we were fortunate that we actually made some ground and increased our lead, which we held to the end of a shortened race. Steve Coello was crewed by my son Neil and although behind us at the end of the beat, started to make inroads into our lead on the down wind legs when their spinnaker gave them much greater speed, but they too fell foul of the strange wind conditions and unfortunately suffered a loss of time. Meanwhile Simon Pryce in his Laser spotted what was happening with us and managed to sail round most of the problems to take an enormous lead in the handicap fleet, who all suffered to various degrees in the flat spots. There were 3 Lasers out but were beaten by Simon by 4 and 7 minutes respectively. The 2 Scorpions of Kay & Craig sailing against Andrew & Jenny Kendall had a good battle, both being able to use their spinnakers on the down wind legs, but the Kendall team finished a minute in front. The lighter conditions once again suited Beacky & Adam, but they were still 2 minutes behind Simon on corrected time. It was another good sail from Anna & Liz in the Vago, finishing 2nd handicap boat on the water but slipping to 3rd on corrected time. Our lunch today was complimented with scones, jam & cream, plus strawberries and cream courtesy of Peter & Jenny Pop, which tasted extremely luscious. The southerly breeze of the morning had now swung to give a north westerly breeze and the course was reset to take advantage of it. Jeremy was crewed for the afternoon race by Suzanne and this time we had a very close race. We took the lead for the first round and beat but I managed to hit one of the beach marks and the resulting 360 gave the Hawkins a reasonable lead which they then started to build on, in fact by the start of the 4th beat I thought that it was all over but then the wind started to play up again. We sailed the beat on almost opposite tacks but by the time we got to the beach marks we had the lead again. I almost threw it away on the last beat by not covering closely enough, so much so that for a short time we had Jeremy overlapping us to windward, but maybe a lack of concentration came to our rescue when Jeremy’s boat touched ours causing them to do turns and allowed us to cruise to the finish line. Meanwhile Chris & Tony were having a much better race than in the morning and by the half way mark were closing both of us down, which would have given another element to watch out for. They have been tuning their Tasar by getting a new launching trolley made and the extra speed that they can now get up and down the slipway is remarkable. Steve & Neil declined to race in the afternoon, which kept them off our backs, but also helped the handicap fleet. This time the honours went to Tim Baily who managed to beat Simon by almost a minute. Beacky suffered gear failure when his kicker block pulled out from the hog and so retired. Andrew & Jenny had a better race, not only beating Kay & Craig again but finished close behind Simon to take 3rd, pushing Anna & Liz down to 4th , Kay 5th and Nick down to 6th. Nick has made the change back from a Supernova back to a Laser, but hasn’t got it up to speed yet. I should imagine that James and Nigel will be back in their Feva next week and after walking away with the Spring series will find it a little more difficult now that Allan has returned to Contender sailing. It should prove an interesting battle. Hopefully Dennis and Justin should be back in their Tasars next week and we could also do with seeing John Mark out on the water again. Looking at the calendar reminds me that The Osprey Nationals will be with us in only 4 weeks time and the exercise of clearing the yard will be repeated again.

June 23rd Sometimes it’s hard to find enough superlatives to describe sailing at Porthpean. Tonight was one of those nights, when everything came together to give superb conditions. We had, brilliant blue skies and together with a very warm sun produced a brilliant blue sea, which was augmented with a light, probably force 2, offshore westerly breeze. It was a stunning background, for the 18 boats that launched for the first Wednesday race of the summer season. Oh yes it was yellow shorts weather as well!! Let’s start with Monday; I took my Laser out for a sail in the afternoon and for well over an hour I planed up and down, trying to erase the memories of my first capsize of the season, when I had a sail of Jeremy’s B14 last Sunday after the racing. Neil & I took it out for a jolly and in no time at all we were blasting away from the shore in what is the fastest boat that currently sails with us. It didn’t take too long before a stronger gust hit us and over we went. Well what made it worse is that I was still sailing in my yellow shorts and just Tee shirt and spray top. Fortunately we weren’t in the water for too long as even now the sea is still colder than I would like for swimming. The B14 isn’t too bad to recover from a capsize, we swapped helms and then Neil dropped us in, so 2 capsizes in 1 day!! We asked for some members to come down on Monday evening to help clear the field and what an amazing response we had. Well over 20 people turned up and in no time at all boats were moved, grass was cut, excess vegetation was cut down and the foundations of an enormous bonfire took place as Andrew Kendall wielded his chain saw, to remove many of the branches that are starting to impede the movements of boats from the field to the beach. The yard itself was spruced up, all the boats that wouldn’t be involved in Wednesday racing were removed to the field, then armed with lawn mower, the grass, under the Laser area was cut and the yard was swept. Thanks very much for all who attended, as it certainly helped to have that many volunteers. Back to tonight; I was down in good time, only to realise that I had left my racing suit of sails at home, so a quick trip home was needed to sort that out. England had won the football match this afternoon, and that combined with the fantastic weather had everyone smiling and in good moods. Whilst rigging the boat on the beach I suddenly found a clevis pin. It was soon obvious where it had come from when the jib was to be seen just flapping around. The retaining clip had come undone and had disappeared. A sprint up to the yard and back was necessary where the contents of my tool box provided a spare clip which was fitted to the errant pin. At last we were ready to launch, but I feared at this stage that we might be late to the starting area. Fortunately for us the majority of the fleet were still making their way out, so even if we were late then it wouldn’t have been too much of a disaster, especially as there were only 2 Tasars out. Mike Voyzey and Dave Saunders were our safety boat crew for the night and set a superb large triangle that was just enough for 4 rounds and a beat. Jeremy & Suzanne who may have been our main competitors in the Tasar, elected to take their B14 out instead. This left only Chris & Tony and us in our fleet, so our mission tonight was to race against the clock and see where we might come amongst the handicap fleet. Well we made it to the start with about 3 minutes to go. A quick check of the line showed that there was enough port bias on it to make the pin end of the line it the favoured end, but the line was a bit short, especially with 2 RS400s, a Contender and the B14 all trying to start as well, so we elected for a safer starboard approach. That almost went wrong as we were sailing behind John Hill, back from his tour of Europe, when a fast port sailing Allan Orton came zooming in. I think Allan intended starting on port but his approach may have been too fast so he sailed down the line and to our dismay tacked underneath us and started to luff up. Fortunately I managed to slip behind him, but John Hill was caught, then pandemonium broke out as the gun went. John was stuck on the mark, I realised that we couldn’t cross the line without colliding with John, so we gybed round and shot through the rest of the fleet on port and then straight into clearer air. Behind I could hear cries of “starboard” from others struggling to cross the line. I think some lost out quite a lot in the lottery of the start. I’m not sure which boat was the first to arrive at the windward mark, it was a close call between the B14 and the Contender, but we were 3rd just in front of the RS400 of Steve Coello and Nigel, but would we be able to hold them off on the reaches? Both the B14 & RS400 shot off at an angle to give them the necessary angle for their sails to generate enough speed, whilst Allan & us took a more direct approach to the gybe mark. The B14 was first to the gybe mark, followed by Allan and not too far ahead of us. The 2nd reach was Tasar favoured, close enough and sufficient breeze for marginal planning, which was enough to keep the RS400 behind us. The rest of the race went in a bit of a blur. There were quite a few shifts on the beat to play with and the 4 of us gradually pulled away from the rest of the fleet. We had 3 Scorpions out tonight, Kay & Craig had a battle royal with Andrew & Jenny Kendall, with Kay winning by a margin of 12 seconds, however out in front of that battle was Ron & Michelle Barratt. Clearly the attending of Open Meetings is starting to improve their speed and they finished over 5 minutes in front of the other 2. In fact Ron & Michelle sailed into 2nd overall, just less than a minute behind Allan. Anna & Liz had a particular good race in their Laser Vago, being really pleased to sail into 3rd, in front of Steve & Nigel, who seemed to have a problem with their pointing on the beats. John Hill who had a disastrous start, made it into 5th place, just in front of Jeremy & Suzanne, who were starting to rue not taking their Tasar out to race. Our newcomers, Jim & Steve, in their RS400 came 10th in only their 2nd time out in the boat, they clearly enjoyed the experience of mixing it in dinghies and are looking forward to more racing with us and it will be interesting to see how quickly they get to grips with the differences between dinghy racing and cat racing. Apart from Allan & John Hill it was not a very good night for the single handers, with all the Lasers and Colin in his Supernova, filling the last few positions. The only thing to blight the evening was that there were no bacon butties!! Jenny has gone away for her summer holiday and unfortunately no one was able to buy in the supplies and cook in the time we had left, although Kay did find sausages and burgers in the deep freeze, together with some finger buns and set about producing hot dogs. The rest of the yard was cleared and an empty yard now awaits the erection of a marquee and all the trimmings for the wedding at the weekend of Tom Pope. The weather forecast is good for the weekend, so we wish them a very happy day and surely a reception at Porthpean will be well remembered for the rest of their lives.

June 21st When the weather records for June this year are studied then I am sure it will go down as one of the best for years. The lovely hot weather goes on courtesy of a big high sitting over the country, and for once, those of us living in the west seem to be getting better weather than those living in the east. My sailing weekend started with several other of our members by sailing at Mylor on Friday evening. Some of our elite members sail on Peter Pope’s Yacht “Alexis”, whereas I sail on Mike Pollards, smaller yacht. This weekend we were joined by my Son, Neil, so we had an extra hand on board which would give us much more muscle when we flew the spinnaker. Well as it happened the wind was much stronger than we wanted and Mike was very wary of flying the spinnaker so it stayed in its bag. Nevertheless we still had a good sail and a 3rd looked well on the cards until I committed a Cardinal sin and sailed through the “gate” on one of the down wind legs and we were then disqualified. Afterwards we went into the Club to watch the last 30 minutes of the England game, which was equally demoralising. Peter Pope and his merry band came 3rd in his class, despite sailing with a reefed down mainsail. On Saturday we held a special Capsize Club afternoon when members of the Canoe Club were invited to have a go at sailing and we had all our training fleet out, including RIB, taking our visitors out for a sail. I went down early with Neil and took the Tasar for a tour of St. Austell bay in a nice brisk breeze. We sailed towards the beacon, way past the mussel farms then took a course to take us to Meveagissey, around the Coastguard rescue tug that was moored there, before returning back to shore, a trip of almost 2 hours. The evening was rounded off by a BBQ and disco, with the food being mainly cooked and prepared by Simon & Sarah Pryce. Sunday was down in the programme as the June Cup and was to be run by the Tasar fleet. The beautiful day should have produced a very large fleet, but holidays, sickness and lethargy reduced our fleet to only 13. Well our Tasar fleet has been decimated just lately with not many members competing. Justin was without Donna and he and Stacey volunteered to run the first race, we ran the 2nd race and Jeremy & Suzanne the 3rd race. Ken, very generously agreed to do the time keeping, which allowed Neil to sail, but I don’t think he minded too much as sitting in the front of a slow moving Tasar is not the most comfortable experience in the World, which must have been confirmed as the first race unfolded. The conditions were light, the sky was blue with a strong hot sun beating down. Sailing clothing for the day was an easily made decision with the yellow shorts and tee shirt making their 2nd appearance in successive weeks. I was confidently expecting, as forecasted, a northerly breeze and wanted to set a long distance course for the first race, a beat would have been set to the beach marks, a reach to the SW Water mark and then the 3rd mark would have been round the outside of all the mussel farms, that are spoiling our Bay. Unfortunately we were greeted by a southerly breeze, which meant going the other way round in what turned out to be a failing breeze. Just for a little change I asked for the start to be just off the beach, using a bobble mark belonging to the Porthpean Outdoor centre and our RIB as a start line, with a short beat to pass between the beach marks before we set off on the long haul to the mussel farm closest to Blackhead. Well the best laid plans go wrong sometimes and this was one of them. The breeze started to fade big time and it took some of us an hour to reach the mussel farms. The breeze came in patches and it was like watching a game of snakes and ladders as first one or two boats caught a breeze and left the others becalmed and then it was their turn to catch the breeze and move forward again. Steve & Polly and Jeremy & Suzanne gained an enormous lead by heading for the cliffs. However in one of what we thought was a fresher breeze we were all lifted up way above them and for a while it looked like they had lost out big time, but our gain proved short lived when they caught a breeze that took them right up to the mussel farm. Due to the lightness of the wind, our Safety boat had laid a fresh buoy towards Carlyon Bay and as we rounded the mussel farm the promised northerly kicked in and we had a long beat in flat water to get us to the mark before we bore away onto a nice reach which took us back to the beach marks. That beat and the reach made up for a lot of frustrations incurred whilst sailing our first leg. The race was won by Steve closely followed by Jeremy, with Simon Pryce taking a well deserved 3rd. After lunch we laid a traditional course and an Olympic triangle was set. This was more to Allan Orton’s liking as he dominated in his Contender from the start, winning by a good margin of almost 5 minutes. Steve and Polly had a bit of a disaster when they capsized under spinnaker and took an age to sort out the sails before finally righting the boat and sailing on. Simon, once again sailing well took 2nd just in front of Jeremy’s B14. A quick run to the beach allowed us to get the Tasar ready so that we could have our chance at victory, but no, yet again Allan powered away, winning yet again, this time by 3 minutes over us in 2nd, whilst Steve and Polly, sailed into 3rd, beating Simon by less than 20 seconds. A result that proved crucial as it gave them 2nd overall, beating Jeremy & Suzanne by half a point, with Simon just half a point behind them. The variety of the conditions gave some excellent results and the Apart from the breeze being light and fickle early on we once again had a fantastic sailing conditions, it’s just a shame so many missed it. Many thanks to Maria who manned the galley, not always the most glamorous job, but nevertheless much appreciated. Another reminder that the yard needs to be cleared this Wednesday after sailing to make space for a marquee for the forthcoming nuptials of Tom Pope. Let’s hope that this beautiful weather lasts for the next weekend at least. A last reminder for anyone who reads this blog today that we are having a work party in the field this evening to clear all the weeds and long vegetation that is slowly covering all the dinghies there. Work party from 18.30 onwards, with a light refreshment in the bar afterwards.

June 16th The fine settled weather, fortunately is still with us, but a brisk north easterly breeze greeted us tonight, with white horses sweeping across the bay from the north easterly wind that has been with us so often this season. However as mostly happens in the evening the wind was set to abate somewhat; as it happened not as much as I thought. A new sailing team joined us tonight, Steve Pitcher and Jim Sharratt from Pentewan Sands SC, have decided to add another string to their bow, so as well as sailing cats they also want to enjoy some of the excitement and challenges of dinghy sailing. Their new steed is an RS400, which hopefully will give Steve & Nigel another similar boat to test themselves against. Well their first sail with us was a bit of a mixed bag as this tale of woe expands. Peter Pope and David Mackrell were our safety boat crew for the eveing. Peter got off on the wrong foot well off both feet actually, as he tripped up over the safety boat trolley as the boat was being launched and all that could be seen for a moment was his head poking up through the water, with quite a bereft expression on his face as the cold water made its presence felt. Welcome back to dinghy world Peter. Peter’s next problem was where to put the leeward mark? The wind was quite strong still out at sea, blowing a good force 4, which was going to give us exciting conditions. From the shore it looked like the beat would be across the bay towards Par, but the wind was actually blowing more from the Charlestown direction towards Blackhead. Whilst we were sailing around the starting area the Safety boat had to rush off to deal with one of the Club Picos that had capsized. By the time Peter and Dave arrived back to the start area it seemed that to get the best beat they would have to move the leeward mark nearer to Ropehaven and make the beat towards the beach marks. But before that could be done the Pico was in trouble again. This time the boom had come off the mast and the whole boat and crew were rapidly disappearing towards France. Fortunately Peter is quite fluent in French, so no worries there. By this time it was looking very unlikely we would be racing as it was going to take some time to recover the Pico, whilst the fleet had to sail around or just sit hoved to. Some of us went off for a jolly, whilst some decided to call it a night and quit before they succumbed to a capsize. Several of us sailed in towards the beach marks to escape the worst of the wind and from where we were, we could see that Peter & Dave had managed to tow the Pico to the start area and they may have even laid a start line. The OOD, Stewart deputising for Jenny, started a count down and we could hear the horn going, but couldn’t see any flags. Steve & Nigel and Ron & Michelle decided that we were having a beach mark start and on what may have been the start gun shot off under spinnaker. I don’t know which way round they were going but they both hoisted Spinnakers and both capsized. There was so much confusion that if there was a race then it just petered out, as the rest of us sailed home. Fortunately this would have been the last race in the Wednesday Spring series and all the main winners and runners up places were already decided so from that point of view, losing the race wasn’t too much of a disaster, but looking back there are lessons to be learnt. No1 is that safety comes first and therefore Peter & Dave had to attend and deal with the Pico, and if it meant losing a race then so be it. However we could have raced if enough people had stayed out, but the conditions were quite hairy at times and several had capsizes whilst waiting. No2, and I stress that this is my opinion, is that only boats suitable for the conditions on the day should go out to race. The Pico whilst an excellent training boat is no racing boat. It’s rigging and fittings are far too flimsy for the 20+ knots we were experiencing out there. I know that breakages can and do happen to us all from time to time, but racing dinghies on the whole are better built for those sort of conditions. I was out on the training night on Tuesday in very light winds when one of the Picos with 2 lads on board capsized. In those very calm conditions they still required help to right the boat as between them they didn’t have enough weight to pull it up on their own. Whilst waiting for the Pico rescue, Ken & I went off on a jolly and in no time we were flying along on a flat out plane, the relative flat sea and strong wind gave us some very thrilling conditions as we swept across the bay towards the SW Water mark. Being well aware that the safety boat was otherwise engaged, we decided not to venture too far away from our part of the bay and turned back after a few minutes to repeat the exercise in the other direction. All in all a great night for sailing, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be out in a Laser as some of our regulars were. Hopefully Jim & Steve, realise that this isn’t our normal way of sailing and will come again for some more exciting and satisfying racing. The yard will have to be cleared next Wednesday after sailing. All boats will have to go into the field as the yard is needed for a marquee for a very important wedding on the following Saturday. I expect that an email will be sent to all soon, but if you are sailing this weekend and know that you will not be sailing next Wednesday then please move you boat or if you know that you won’t be sailing either at the weekend or Wednesday then could you please move it during the next week. We also need to cut the grass in the field and next Monday evening has been set aside for this task. It’s something we do about this time each year; we do need manpower to move boats so if you can help then come along at 18.30. Boots and gloves are almost essential and if anybody has a petrol strimmer then that too would be very welcome. We will be running the July Cup this weekend and unfortunately for me the Tasar fleet are tasked to organise it. The Tasar fleet has dwindled of late with quite a few away on holiday or not sailing for whatever reason so I think the Cup will be a handicap race to include Tasars, but some of the Tasars will have to miss a race to officiate. Anyway we will try and ensure it runs as smooth as possible and get 3 races in, with the best 2 scores to count.

June 13th Fortunately for us, this weekend was almost as good a weekend as last weekend, with another sunny day with an offshore westerly wind, albeit a little lighter. Fine weather tends to guarantee a better turnout and so it was, though again we were missing some regulars. Chris Hazell was back from his holiday, fully refreshed and ready to take on the world, well Porthpean anyway. It was the first race for almost 2 years for Chris & Luke Bilkie. Football has been playing a big part in his son’s lives, but that season is over and it looks like sailing is now back on their agenda. Another nice sight to see was Tim Cockings on the beach with his family and Tim took Chris’s Tasar, formerly Tim’s, out for a sail with his son. I didn’t get the chance to speak to Tim but it is quite possible that he might take out family membership again and become another regular Father and son sailing team. It was very nice to see Sheila Hadlow down assisting Maria with galley duties. It is only a few weeks ago that Robin passed away and Sheila still wants to be involved with the Club and more importantly we all want her to stay involved with the Club, though she still leads a busy life with the shop still open and also trying to stay in touch with her family, some of them living in the London area. Today was the last scheduled race in the Spring series and for the first time that I can remember we have managed to sail all 8 races. Yes so far this season, which kicked off at the end of March we have managed to race every weekend. Over those weeks we have had mixtures of various weather conditions and most importantly we haven’t had any of the normal south easterlies that usually come along in the springtime. However we have had an unusually predominance of north easterly winds, which have given some tricky beats, beating across the bay from right to left. One of the by products of completing all 8 races is that, all the series results for 1st place in the handicap and Tasar fleets were already decided. Nigel & James comfortably winning both morning and afternoon race series, whereas the Tasar results were shared by Ken & I winning the mornings and Jeremy & Suzanne winning the afternoon series. The last Wednesday race of the spring series will be sailed this Wednesday. Steve & Polly were our Safety boat crew today and set a triangular configuration that was sailed as an Olympic course. Something like 16 boats launched and headed out to the starting area. Jan & Pete Barnes in their Kestrel being one of them, but the lure of sunshine and a nice force 2-3 westerly tempted them to leave their spinnaker up and head for Cannis and then on to Polkerris for their lunch. I had discussed this with Pete earlier so wasn’t surprised, but the tide was just right for them with low water about 13.00 meant that they could beach at Polkerris, lunch and then wait for the rising tide to float them off again. The only problem that they uncounted was the breeze filled in during the afternoon and they had a hard beat all the way back, with quite a swell building over on the Par side of the bay. The start line for the first race had a nice degree of port bias on it and a few of us took full advantage to cross the fleet and head off into the distance. Our first beat looked very good but as we closed on the beach marks we encountered some light winds and lost a lot of ground to Dennis and Brian who closed us down and then sailed round us to sail off onto the first of the reaches. A position they held until we started the next beat, when they suddenly ran out of wind and we glided past them. From there we built up a good lead on some fortuitous wind shifts, which we held until the end. Dennis and Brian were safely tucked up in 2nd place but behind the other 3 Tasars were having a good race, with the invigorated team of Chris & Tony, beating Chris & Luke Bilkie by just under 20 seconds to claim 3rd. Following them all home about 30 seconds behind was Justin & Donna. Beacky & Adam, freed from the clutches of the Feva, brought their Enterprise home in 1st place, thus guaranteeing them 2nd place in the series. We also had some different crew configurations today. Anna took Steve Coello onboard, for Steve’s first outing in a Vago. They sailed well to take line honours but ended up in 2nd place, some 30 seconds behind on corrected time, pushing Tim Baily down to 3rd. For the first time for quite a while we had 2 Scorpions out. Kay teamed up with Jenny Kendall to give an all ladies team whilst Sarah Kendal crewed for Andrew, so there was quite a bit of family rivalry at hand with Kay getting the upper hand finishing almost a minute ahead. There were 3 Lasers out, and Tim Baily beating both Nick Haskins and Brain Reeves. A series of triangles was set for the afternoon course and by this time the breeze was starting to build a little, which gave much more challenging conditions. Beacky decided that he couldn’t improve on his 2nd place in the series, elected to rest his bad back and didn’t race. Colin and Briab Reeves also packed their sailing in for the day, but we did gain Allan Orton in his Contender and also David Mackrell in his Laser. There was no port bias on the start line for this race and the resulting first beat proved very interesting, we were further down the line and rather frustrating we were prevented from tacking on an increasingly heading tack by several of the fleet just up wind of us. By the time we arrived at the beach marks Allan had stormed off into the lead but behind was a gaggle of us, all fighting to get round and quite a few “starboards” were clearly heard. Dennis & Brian came out of this melee in front of us. We caught them up on the 2nd reach and became involved in a bit of a luffing match, which suited Anna & Steve well as they closed quickly with their spinnaker powering them on. In fact they slotted into 2nd place on the leeward mark reading which certainly helped us as it put Dennis & Brian into some dirty air, but they quickly pulled through. Once again we had a good battle with Dennis but once again we managed to hold them off and increase our lead. Just behind Justin and Donna were having a much better race and finished almost 3 minutes ahead of Chris & Tony. Did they peak too early in the morning race? Allan proved yet again how well a Contender sails in a blow, finishing almost 5 minutes ahead of Anna & Steve. Slotting into 3rd place was Andrew & Sarah Kendall. This time winning the battle of the Scorpions, however were helped quite nicely by Kay as she and normal crew Craig, managed to capsize on one of the gybe marks. Adam Eastham had good fun on the Club Laser but had a capsize and took a while to get the boat up again, but still came home grinning from ear to ear. Just as we packed up from the days sailing a fine drizzle engulfed us, so we had got away with a yet another brilliant day’s sailing. Next weekend is the June Cup, which is due to be run by the Tasar fleet. Hopefully it will be a 3 race series, so if possible we need to start on time. The Capsize club is now being moved back to an official 19.00 start time, the 18.00 start is proving too much of a rush for some. So far we have been bedevilled by poor conditions. Last Tuesday there was very heavy rain and virtually no wind, so we had to cancel.

June 9th After the exciting conditions of last Sunday's racing we were back to frustrating light south easterly winds again, which seem to be bedevilling the Wednesday series. The Capsize Club on Tuesday had to be cancelled due to very heavy rain and more importantly absolutely no wind. Today was a pleasant contrast as the rain had moved away and we returned to warmer weather and sunnier skies. The breeze during the day was forcast to be a north easterly, but in fact turned out to be a south easterly with a reasonable enough 8-10knots, which kept the beach cool but was not strong enough to produce a dumping surf. 15 boats launched for the penultimate Wednesday race of the Spring series. The series has been blighted over the last 4 weeks with very light winds giving almost impossible conditions to race in. The breeze when we launched was light but steady, but ominously as the clock ticked towards the start, started to fade away. If only we were on Central European Time we would have started effectively at 18.00 when the breeze was still there and we would have had a good race. Unfortunately we only had 2 Tasars on the water, which is starting to de value having a Tasar fleet. Jeremy rushed back from Coventry to take part, needing the points as he and Suzanne will be away on Safari later this week and so will miss next Wednesday. Our start proved to be a little controversial, we had Jeremy tucked away below and behind us as we moved along the start line. We were just behind Pete Barnes in the Club Laser and with only a few seconds to the start Pete started to luff very high and in our sightings along the line must have been well over. Just as the race started his transom quarter just touched our boat. Now here is the dilemma, if Pete wasn’t over then we were in the wrong, but if he was over, and we were convinced he was, then Pete was in the wrong as he had to keep clear of us. Unfortunately there was no second gun, so we decided just to sail on and see what happened. We opened up a bit of a gap on Jeremy on the very light beat, but Jeremy & Suzanne overtook us on the run to the beach marks and started the 2nd beat with a 3 boat length lead. In the light airs it would be almost impossible to pass them but somehow we just produced enough lift to be able to overtake and put some distance between us, so much so that we started the reaches with a reasonable lead. By this time the breeze had fallen to almost nothing and we literally drifted through the water watching the RS400 of Steve & Nigel in front of us, limping towards the shortened course finish line. The handicap fleet was well represented, with 4 Lasers out, 2 Scorpions, consisting of Ron & Michelle, just back from another Open Meeting and Andrew & Sarah Kendall in their restored Scorpion. Allan’s new Contender, James and Sally in the RS Feva, Colin in his hated conditions in his Supernova, both Club Picos were out but were unable to make the start. I know the conditions were light but these boats are so slow that they should be launched much earlier if they ever hope to get to a start line on time. However the conditions were so dire that only 5 of the handicap fleet stuck it out. Steve & Nigel had a very strong win finishing 20 minutes clear ahead on corrected time over Steve Wingrove whose perseverance brought him home in 2nd place. Brian Reeves in 3rd being 1st and only finisher of the 4 Lasers. Colin was 2nd handicap boat on the water to finish but slipped to 4th on corrected time, just in front of Ron & Michelle whose Scorpion looks fantastic with its suit of new Mylar sails. After the race I caught up with our Safety boat person and asked whether Pete was over the line at the start, to which he said yes but went on to say that as it was Pete in the Club Laser then he let it go, clearly the wrong decision as it could have affected the race. Mind you if he had said Pete was not over the line then I would have had to retire, but it still cast a shadow over what could have been a critical race.

June 6th Apologies for not having a blog for a week, but life in the Rigby household has been very busy over the last week with the residence of our 2 Grand Daughters, a very demanding time especially as Sue was working for most of the week. Anyway I was away for the Contender Open last weekend, but did pass quite a few Contenders on the A30 as we returned home from Bristol, so thought that we had a good entry. In fact we had a superb entry of 23, which is probably one of the highest turn outs to an Open Meeting at Porthpean for many years. From what I hear they had quite challenging conditions on Saturday with an easier day on the Sunday. It was a 5 race series with 2 of the races being held on Saturday, followed by a well attended social in the evening, when they were entertained by a Tony Dunn quiz. Will that bring even more entries next year? 3 races were held back to back on Sunday which produced an early finish which in turn allowed the competitors to make an early exit as some had very long journeys to make. Top performer for Porthpean was Allan Orton in his newly acquired Contender, and a superb looking boat it is. Allan’s results showed an improvement in every race culminating in a 3rd in the final race, so I guess Allan reckons it was money well spent. Stacey, by contrast, was way off his normal pace. It just goes to show, sailing like any sport means being at the top of your game to produce the best results. Tuesday was another night for the Capsize Club. The weather for the past week has been much better but has the affect of giving much lighter winds, but there was just enough for the sailors to get on the water and practice their skills. The midweek Wednesday race turned out to be a very frustrating affair, very reminiscent of an earlier race this season when the wind at the Club was a very light south easterly breeze. I knew that evening that the breeze would eventually disappear, so elected not to bother launching, and instead watched on as the fleet managed to crawl round one lap in an excruciating slow manner. But finish they did and hence meant no points for us. This Wednesday was another example, though when we arrived at the Club there was a hint of a better breeze from the south, but as we all rigged and changed the breeze ominously moved into the south east and started to fade. Nevertheless Allan Orton & Harry Fryer laid a small course and we almost started on time in a nice light breeze. However many of the fleet were still struggling to get to the starting area, which fortunately for them was the beach marks. 2 of the boats were the Club Picos with Kay on board one and James the other. We were given an Olympic course to sail, which was led initially by Steve & Nigel in Steve’s RS400, followed by Jeremy and Suzanne and then us. Both Steve and Jeremy forgot about the run on the 2nd round but still headed us as we started our 3rd beat. By this time the breeze had faded to almost nothing and some had only just started the race, giving the race officer a complete headache as to where boats were, so the race was abandoned, which for Porthpean is a very rare occurrence indeed. At least by sailing/drifting, we did qualify for bacon butties when we eventually paddled back to shore. On Friday we were joined at home by my daughter and her husband and on Saturday went to the beach, Porthpean of course. It was quite a magical day with hot sunshine. The wind was a very light offshore breeze and I was able to fulfil a long awaited promise to the girls to take them out in Grand Dad’s boat. I managed to get Katie, Sarah & Jessica arranged across the thwart and we pushed off for Katie’s first ever and Jessica’s 2nd sail. My intention was to sail over the old fishing trawler that was moored off Silver mine beach but as we headed towards it I spotted a shark swimming around. We sailed right up to it and what an amazing sight it was. The water was almost completely flat with sun blazing down on it and our shark friend was just drifting along with its mouth wide open trawling for plankton. It was a truly awesome sight and the girls were spell bound and we spent several minutes just sailing around watching it. It was the closest that I have ever been to a shark and I would estimate its size to be about 3M long and the size of its mouth fully open was incredible. So onto Sunday; and despite an initial poor forecast we actually had a fantastic day for sailing. A shifty force 3 westerly which in my opinion gives us our best sailing conditions was present but unfortunately Ken & I were destined for safety boat duties. Nigel had also designated for Tim & Hannah to join us to get some experience of what is involved. Tim joined me in the safety boat and Hannah joined Ken in the race box to learn time keeping duties. As the wind was so good and I had enough time, I elected to take enough marks with us to lay a P shape course, which was displayed on the board outside the changing rooms with the stark warning that the race would be starting as advertised on time at 11.00. That message caused some panic, but also ensued that the majority of the fleet were out in time ready for the start which was out at sea. I think only one boat in the 15 boat fleet was late for the start, so well done to everybody for heeding the warning. Our start line was too biased to starboard, which lead to a bit of barging and Justin and Donna were forced to abort their start and come in again. Allan was out in his new Contender and thrived in the conditions, leading at the first mark and then pulling away to give himself a lonely race at the front of the fleet. Unbelievably Justin & Donna rounded first of the Tasars just in front of Dennis, sailing with No2 son Nathan, and were closely followed by Jeremy & Suzanne. Justin was quickly off on the plane and started to open up a nice lead. Jeremy took a while to pass Denis and then set off in hot pursuit. They gained the lead on the next beat and started to put some distance between them. Dennis and Nathan, weighing in at 32 stone, suffered in the marginal planning conditions and gradually fell back. John Mark with new crew Andrew Hoban, moved into 3rd place and Mike & Vicky Voyzey 4th place. There was quite an exciting finish to the race as Justin & Donna, took a different route up the last beat and ended up just pipping Jeremy by 4 seconds, to the delight of Donna and dismay of Jeremy. It just shows what enormous gains and losses can be experienced in those sort of conditions. Nigel & James in the RS Feva had another good race, actually beating Beacky in his Enterprise on the water. I was watching at one time when the Enterprise was planing and the Feva with spinnaker flying came from behind to surge past at a good rate of knots, even overtaking a Laser on the same reach. However they only finished 2nd on corrected time, beating by the flying Contender, which I think is unbeatable whenever the wind is strong enough to enable the helm to trapeze. Colin Wainwright in only his 2nd race of the season found the conditions quite challenging and a series of capsizes lead to his retirement as also befell Steve Wingrove in his Solo. Simon, lacking a crew for his Tasar, outshone all the Laser sailors to take 3rd in the handicap fleet. Steve Mitchell & Polly were almost a minute late to the start, but gradually pulled though most of their fleet to finish 2nd on the water but fell back to 5th on corrected time. We had a guest appearance of Tim Haskins for the race. Tim was down on holiday from Yorkshire, and borrowed Nick’s Supernova to sail into 4th position. The breeze had freshened a tad for the afternoon race. The beat was lengthened, which gave a longer run and the entire fleet lined up for the 2 pm start time. I messed up with the start line again, this time putting too much port bias on it, which did make for some interesting manoeuvring as boast crossed tacks to get over the start line. Again Allan was soon into his stride and shot off, never to be seen again, beating the very fast Laser of Simon into 2nd place by a margin of 8 minutes on corrected time. The fresher breeze proved too much for some as a series of capsizes proved costly for some. Both Beacky and Nigel capsized at the gybe mark. Here the difference in modern and older technology was so evident as the Feva was quickly upright and sailing off again, whereas the old Enterprise came up full of water and took a several minutes of slow sailing to plane the water out of the back and self bailers. Despite their dalliance with the water, the Feva still made it into 3rd place surprisingly in front of Steve & Polly. Jeremy & Suzanne made no mistakes in this race leading from start to finish, with an eventual 5 minute lead over Dennis & Nathan who found the stronger conditions more to their liking, who in turn finished a minute in front of Justin & Donna. Mike & Vicky were another victim of the capsize syndrome. This was Vicky’s first capsize for about 8 years, but she still came up laughing. It’s still disappointing to look at the Club yard when the weather is so good and see so many boats not sailing. I know we all have busy lives to lead and it isn’t always possible to sail, but yesterday was one of those special sailing days that will be remembered by those who sailed, judging by the compliments of superb reaches that we had provided. Sadly Emma & Alex have left us. They sailed a Laser 2 and I met them in field on Saturday as they were packing their boat up as it has been sold to someone in Devon. We wish them the best of luck in the future and hope they have happy memories of being members of Porthpean.

May 27th Sailing should be the game but frustration is the way things turned out last night. For the 2nd week running we were denied an evening race due to lack of wind. I could tell from the moment I arrived that sailing was going to be very dubious and so it turned out. We were presented with a very light onshore breeze and once again the apparent wind at the Clubhouse showed promise but as so often on an evening the promise turned into disappointment. In fact by 7 pm all we were left with was a glassy swell, with small dumping surf on the beach. All in all very disappointing as we were due a change of direction to a northerly, which in the event never materialised. One or two covers came off for a spot of maintenance and the bar and the pool table became the hub for the evening. This weekend the Club is hosting a Contender Open meeting. Both Stacey and Allan in his new boat will be sailing and the forecast is for fresher south westerly winds which should allow them all to wire on most legs of the course. The Contender has a very strong following and in years gone past we have had visitors as far a field as Yorkshire, Kent and other Clubs on the south coast. So it is quite possible that we could have up to 15 entrants, hence no Club racing for the rest of us. There will be a social on Saturday evening with food and I know Kay has mailed Club members about this. The high light of the evening will be a Tony Dunn Quiz, so your grey matter will be severely tested. I will be taking the opportunity of family visits, so will be heading out of Cornwall whilst thousands of holiday makers will be making the journey into Cornwall, before we return on Sunday with 2 little girls in tow, holidaying with us for the half term.

May 24th The weather men promised us a good weekend, and for once they delivered. Hot glorious sunshine, but unfortunately hardly any wind at all. However there was the lightest of zephyrs, from the south, though there were large, glassy areas out at sea, so no heroic hiking out for us this weekend. Instead it would be a day of patience and utter concentration. The weather was so nice that the yellow shorts just had to be released form my sailing bag, coupled with a light weight tee shirt, buoyancy aid, hat and sun glasses, completed the clothing for the day. John & Steve were pleased to have drawn the short straw, manning the safety boat today. In fact it was a very good day to accept average points for doing a duty as it was far preferable than to having to crouch and crawl round the windless bay. Anyway just for a difference a square course was set, which gave a run after the first reach before giving us another reach back to the start line. So light was the breeze that the course for the morning race was shortened to just 1 round. Quite a large fleet readied themselves for the race, though some opted not to launch as they did not relish sailing in the near drifting conditions. In fact we were one of the last to launch as we didn’t fancy the lack of wind either. However over a long series you do tend to get a full range of conditions, some you like and some you don’t and if you want to win trophies then you just have to buckle down and get on with it. This year we certainly have had a good mix so far, from almost survival conditions on some days to today’s drifter. For once, Nigel & James sailing the little Feva didn’t have it their own way. The wind being far too light for them to make any inroads and were unable to be in their normal top position. Instead the day belonged to Beacky & Adam, who cleaned up with first place in each race. Simon fresh back from his honeymoon sailed into 2nd in the morning race and Steve Wingrove excelled to take 3rd. The start line for the first race was quite heavily port biased, so I elected to try and start at the pin end on starboard, but didn’t get my timing right and had to cross the line just a second or so early. Justin & Donna timed their port tack start better and crossed most of the fleet. My premature start forced us to gybe round the pin buoy and we ended up doing yet another Irish port hand flyer, where we pass behind everyone on the start line. At least we had clear air and a modicum of speed. Unbelievably as we sailed along the beat we started to pull through everybody else, apart from Justin, but even he fell behind us just before we finished the beat. Jeremy had a secret weapon on board today. Suzanne was away on maternal duties so No1 son Fin was drafted in as a replacement. This was almost perfect as their combined weight was just about right for the conditions. Fortunately for us their beat wasn’t so good and they rounded 3rd, a decent distance behind. The run almost did for us, as what little wind there was, was fading all the time. Jeremy overtook Justin and by the time we started the 2nd reach, was very close behind us. One benefit when the wind is so light is that crew weight starts to a little less important and fortunately we got to the beach marks for a shortened course, still ahead. Mike Voyzey, sailing with daughter Vicky, once again found his new sails beneficial when they sailed into 3rd place in their Tasar, ahead of Chris & Tony. The afternoon race was started with a lot less boats as several called it a day after the slow morning race, but Richard & James King came out to play with their Merlin Rocket and very encouraging finished 2nd pushing Simon down to 3rd . This time the Feva made it into 4th place but Nigel was sailing with daughter Sophie, who was enjoying (?) her first race, as James elected to have a ride in the safety boat. My attempt at a port hand start went awry as the breeze appeared to shift as we started our run in thus meaning we had to once again pass behind the majority of the fleet. Beacky and Adam had a brilliant start and their Enterprise powered ahead of the whole fleet to round the windward mark first, quite a rare feat when sailing against Tasars. We were next to round, comfortably ahead of Jeremy, and our positions remained until the breeze freshened ever so slightly at the end of the 2nd round, this was just enough for Jeremy & Finn as they started to close us down quite noticeably, until finally they sailed inside us just before the last gybe mark, then they held the lead to beat us over the line. Chris and Tony were the next Tasar home, followed somewhat later by Richard & Matt Morley who are still learning to get to grips with their Tasar. Full marks also go to Andrew & Jenny Kendall, still sailing their old GP14, quite a difficult boat to sail in the ultra light conditions. Final landings on the beach were interesting. High tide was at 14.15 so was still quite high as we approached the beach. That coupled with a narrow beach full of sunbathers and then a dumping surf, gave them plenty of amusement as we grappled with our boats, trying to get them back onto the launching trollies. Oh yes I almost forgot, it’s that time of the year when all the weed starts to appear and with a few days of easterlies, there was good deal of it floating in the water on the beach. Fortunately everybody was safely recovered, with no major mishaps

May 19th The Capsize Club eventually got off the beach last night. After 2 unpleasant evenings which stopped sailing, one with too much wind and the other with no wind, we finally launched. We managed to put 5 boats on the water for some training and experience. The breeze was just about perfect for beginners, being a light north westerly, which gave very easy launching and recovery in a very flat sea. The light breeze meant that virtually anybody could sail without getting into any problems. Some of you may have seen the announcement on the front page about the death of Buck. The newer members of the Club may be wondering who he was. Well Buck has been a member of the Club for many years, but due to age and poor health he hasn’t sailed at all over the last 15 years, but he used to enjoy coming to the prize giving dinners and sometimes popped down on a Sunday morning when we were doing Club maintenance, or appear when we were hosting Nationals. His funeral will be next Tuesday at 16.30 and his family have asked to use the Club house for a funeral social after the service. Buck’s family have asked not to have flowers sent but for anyone wishing to do so to make a donation to Porthpean SC, which is a very kind gesture. Due to the reception after the funeral the Capsize Club has been cancelled next week. Well it finally had to happen; we started our sailing season on March 28th and have raced every Sunday & Wednesday since. But finally the weather struck and tonight kept us onshore. Surprisingly it wasn’t the south easterlies that we tend to get in the early season, which for some reason this year have been absent, but absolute calm and a thick sea mist. Cornwall is famous for its sea mists, and today the conditions were perfect for one with apparent warm winds from the south meeting the colder sea around our coast, resulting in the mist that we had tonight. However several boat covers did come off for some essential maintenance. A new kicker was installed on the Feva. Nigel kindly used his “fib” to re splice one of my kicker controls, new halyards were fitted to Chris’s Tasar. Jeremy fitted some new elastic to his B14. Anna & Liz were adjusting their spinnaker halyards on the Vago. RIB No2 had a new tow hitch fitted and I think some excess foliage was cleared from the upper dinghy park. The picture tonight is one that Chris Hazell sent me and is almost self explanatory, but note the sailing clothing. Yes it really was that bad in those days and you can see how an entire sail clothing industry has sprung up over the years. Not only can we look smarter, but more importantly keep warmer.

May 17th Well it has been quite a busy week for the Club. On Saturday Liz and Maria took some of the cadets to Roadford Lake Reservoir for some training, BBQ and cadet racing. From all accounts they all had a great time and in the near future I hope to be able to publish some photographs. At the same time, Stacey organised some training for Contender sailors and had people from mounts Bay and Restronguet attend. Once again the training went down well and 2 of the Contender sailors stayed on to race with us today. The summer weather has still not arrived properly but at least we had a dry day rather than the wet one forecast but we did have a fresh westerly breeze that had been forecast so once again we had some fast and furious sailing. The Tasar fleet was rather depleted, as Chris & Tony had their duty in the safety boat, and they excelled by laying a very good true course that gave a hard beat followed with 2 well balanced reaches that allowed flat out planning at various times. Jeremy & Suzanne have a broken Tasar at the moment, so took out their B14 instead and flew round the course without any mishaps, though they were both feeling shattered by the time we finished racing for the day. The B14 looks a lovely boat as it sails along, but controlling it is very demanding. Justin has bought a new mylar jib for his Tasar and really felt the benefits this morning when he and Donna clung on to our transom for most of the race. The new jib has certainly helped his pointing ability, so he feels that the money was well spent. I think it’s full marks to both Suzanne and Donna, for their sailing abilities. Suzanne only started sailing last year and has proved herself to be a very good crew for Jeremy. Donna only started sailing this year and you can see her confidence growing each time she goes out. Maybe it is a good thing but both girls are having to sail in some quite strong conditions at times, such is the vagaries of this season’s winds. Sitting in the wings, still getting practice are Peggy & Caluna McIntrye who have joined the Club this year and Amy & Katie Eastham, all keen to sail in the Picos. Hopefully with their tutelage in the capsize club, they will get their confidence very quickly. So for today, we were slightly down on normal attendance with Ron & Michelle and Steve Wingrove away at Open Meetings, Dennis and Nick away on holiday, nevertheless we did have up to 16 boats on the water so the bay at least looked very picturesque. Both races involved starting at sea, beating in towards the beach marks. Launching from the beach proved easy and it was quite a slow lazy sail out towards the start line, but once we hardened up into the wind we could feel the power of the breeze, which in itself wasn’t too bad but it was very shifty and quite gusty and as normal more so the closer to the beach marks we sailed. The safety boat was fired up and ready to go by 10.00, which should have been a warning to everyone that we might start on time. Nevertheless, quite a few were caught out and had to start late which probably ruined their race. The Tasar fleet almost became a contest between just us and Justin / Donna as John Mark dropped back quite early and Stacey who had a very late start was too far back to make any impact. Several times I thought that we had pulled out a good lead only to be reeled back in again, but we still had a reasonable lead when we finished. Well Jeremy & Suzanne whizzed away from everyone in their B14, but at the final reckoning it was again the slowest boat in the fleet, the RS Feva of Nigel & James that took the honours on corrected time. This was their 4th straight win in the morning series and I would think that they are now almost unbeatable, 2nd and 3rd places are very tight with Janet & Pete Barnes very close to Steve Wingrove. There is still time for some others to make a late charge, but this will mean that they have to make the commitment to race every weekend for the next month to do so. The afternoon race was sailed in similar conditions to the morning race, we lost 2 of the morning fleet but gained 2 more, and so had a similar number out once again. The course this time was an Olympic type, which in a way is a shame for the Tasar as it takes away every other round of a planning opportunity. Nevertheless, most Championship races involve having a runs in them so is a discipline that we need to sail in. There was a fair bit of bias on the short start line which involved a bit of a log jam at the safety boat end. Fortunately we kept out of the melee and started further down the line in comparative free air apart from one of our visiting Contenders. Indeed half way up the first beat we were looking really well placed having established a reasonable lead over Stacey / Colin and John Mark and his new crew. By the time we closed at the beach marks John Mark had shot into the lead and we tacked just in front of Stacey, so in a matter of 2 or 3 minutes our nice lead had evaporated, such are the vagaries of the wind on the beat. We regained the lead on the 2nd reach but Stacey took the lead further up the beat and hels us off throughout the rest of the race. John dropped back and quite strangely Justin & Donna just couldn’t make any headway on any of us which must have been a disappointment after the morning race. Once again the RS Feva took the honours on corrected time, so yet another series they are dominating in. Jeremy & Suzanne were much closer this time, finishing 2nd, pushing Simon Pryce, fresh back from holiday into 3rd place. Steve Mitchell, without Polly took out Anna’s Vago, crewed by Tim Baily, finished just behind Simon, though they were counting a time delay of a capsize, so could have finished much higher. Both Picos were out racing with Anna in one and Adam in the other, with Anna winning the duel.

May 12th Almost mid May, it's still cool, and summer? Not yet. I’m afraid that about sums things up at the moment. The Capsize Club had its 2nd evening meeting on Tuesday, but once again was blighted by the weather. There was a very light south easterly blowing on Tuesday when we arrived at the Club, which almost always heralds no wind by about 19.00. However the Picos, Bug & Vago were rigged and taken down to the beach as was the RIB. I went out with Liz on the RIB for an inspection, but it was obvious that there was just no hint of a breeze anywhere. So as not to waste the evening Liz managed to take all those interested for a trip in the safety boat, allowing them all to experience driving it. Maybe next week we will be 3rd time lucky. However it was still very cold, so I wasn’t too upset that we couldn’t sail. Hot dogs had been prepared by Ray in the galley, so there was a welcome smell of onions wafting out of the Clubhouse. It was all change for tonight though, as on arriving at the Club I could see that we had a nice little Westerly blowing. The tide was high and so just off the beach the water looked so flat and lifeless that many thought that we wouldn’t be able to sail. Experience tells me that normally an offshore breeze will remain until sunset, so it is always worth trying to race in it. Kay & Craig were duty safety boat drivers tonight and were quickly dispatched to get a course laid and hopefully another start on time. Well the breeze was playing games with us, as it started to swing from a westerly to a south westerly, but just as the start line was being laid swung to a north westerly, giving a beat into the beach marks from Blackhead direction. Not only that, also the breeze was just sufficient to get 2 on the side decks in full hiking mode (well at times). The start line was very starboard biased, which caused a bit of a pile up at the pin end resulting in the RS400 of Steve & Nigel doing penalty turns. That in itself was result for us as invariably we get tangled up with the RS somewhere in the race. Stacey was the first to the beach marks, only just in front of us with Jeremy & Suzanne just behind us. Clearly we were going to have a close race tonight. For once we seemed to find sufficient speed down wind to gain the lead at the jibe mark, and pull out a bit on the broad reach taking us back to start the beat. The breeze started to move around again, turning what had been an excellent beat into a more of a one tacker, but there was still enough movement closer to the beach marks to keep everyone on their toes. Well tonight luck favoured us a bit better as we were far enough in front to stay out of the clutches of the RS400, whereas both Stacey & Jeremy had to contend with battling to overtake it on the beats. Thank you Steve, it certainly helped us. However Stacey with his extremely high pointing angles kept us on our toes until the end. Further back the other 2 Tasars of John Mark & Mike Voyzey, swapped places at times before Mike got the better of John, beating him by the slim margin of 9 seconds. Once again Ron & Michelle lead the handicap fleet, the breeze was just right for them upwind and then their spinnaker proved a godsend on the down wind reaches, though Ron told me that the broad reach was too broad for them to get the most out of it. Only just behind them lurked Allan in his Laser, who finished close enough to the faster Scorpion to beat it on handicap by some 30 seconds. Brian Reeves did well to finish 3rd, pushing the fastest boat the RS400 down to 4th, just I front of Tim Baily. Colin, somehow had a capsize and then damaged his kicker so retired but James in the Pico and Steve in his Solo battled on in the fading breeze to eventually finish. The nights are noticeably brighter now when we finish sailing, and we still have about 5 weeks to go until the longest day but we could do with more people sailing. It is unfortunate that we always have to take boats off the water to officiate, but that’s normal for a small Club like ours and just something that we have to put up with. On the bright side, so far everyone has turned up for their duties, which always takes the pressure off Nigel & Ken who otherwise would be looking round to see if they could find any volunteers.

May 9th What a week we have had, sadly Robin Hadlow passed away on Wednesday and we had a General Election on Thursday, which has resulted in a hung Parliament, and is also hogging all the news headlines. Believe it or not the election has a connection with PSC. Some of the older members may remember Mike Baker who sailed a Scorpion, in fact he still was sailing here when I joined the Club in 1987. Well Mike’s son Stephen has just been elected as Conservative MP for Wycombe. Another bit of news is that Adam Eastham has been selected to sail aboard a Clipper Yacht that at the moment is berthed at Fowey. Adam sets off on Monday for a voyage to possibly the Isle of Wight or Bristol, so good luck to Adam and I am sure he will find it a fantastic time, probably a bit different than sailing an Enterprise or Pico around our bay. Well our miserable weather goes on. It seems almost like an extension of the Frostbite series, yes we have one or two nice days but overall we have had plenty of north easterlies which are starting to get on everybody’s nerves, as it is so cold, not least for the poor people sitting on the safety boat. Today it was Justin & Kelvin’s turn to set us a course. The wind this morning was a light south easterly, a direction which I detest as if the surf is low enough to let us launch then the wind is too light for enjoyable sailing. Well today was right on the balance. We all launched without any big dramas and the breeze was enough to get us on the side decks hiking and planning. Stacey teamed up with Allan in Dennis’s boat but problems with the main halyard delayed their appearance on the start line. The crummy weather no doubt cut down on our entry as there were only about 11 boats to race, though we did have 5 Tasars out. Nevertheless the conditions once again suited the Feva of Nigel & James and they made the most of the conditions and their handicap to record another 1st. Beating the Kestrel of Janet & Pete, though Pete took the helm this morning with Tristran riding as crew. At the moment Nigel & James are streaking away with the series, though there are several races to go yet so plenty of time for some of the others in the handicap fleet to make their play. Jeremy & Suzanne and us started almost side by side, so much so that we tacked off early to escape their dirty wind, having to dip Mike & Dave in the process, so we were really pleased that as we closed towards the windward mark we crossed in front of Jeremy. The down wind legs suited us a bit better and we pulled away bit by bit on each of the rounds. I said earlier that I don’t really like a south easterly as there are almost no wind shifts on the beat so a race can become a bit processional and this morning was exactly that. The afternoon race was much different, the wind had increased to a good force 3 and had changed direction to a north easterly. We had a few problems when in the process of launching, the boat was floating in the water just off the trolley when I noticed that we hadn’t fastened the clew of the main onto the boom. Doh!!!, what a silly thing to do. Anyway with a little struggle, said main sail and boom were joined in holy matrimony. Attempt number 2 failed as this time the rudder blade was jammed, so again we landed back on the beach. By the time the rudder blade was freed we had a boat full of water, far too heavy to bring back to shore, so we launched and sailed rather slowly, with water sloshing around the cockpit out towards the start which was way out to sea, hoping that the bailer would suck it all out and more importantly not being late for another start. Well we made it in time but still had quite a lot of water sloshing around in the boat when we started. Even so we were 2nd to Stacey & Allan at the windward mark but couldn’t hold off Jeremy & Suzanne on the reach to the beach marks. Try as we did we couldn’t break through on the beats and Stacey & Allan increaser their lead and we finished in that order. Meanwhile Chris & Tony discovered a problem when they noticed that one of their side stays had lost it’s retaining pin. They managed to sail all the way back to the shore, accompanied by the safety boat before they turned the wrong way and down came the mast. Well I suppose at least they broke their capsizing sequence!! Janet returned to helming the Kestrel and for 2 rounds were very close to us 3 Tasars, before dropping further back. However Nigel & James in the Feva were sailing another good race to take another win and tighten their grip on the Afternoon series as well as the morning series. On this showing they are favourites to win several cups this season. Landing back on the beach was fraught with difficulties for everyone but many hands were available to grab boats and lift them out of the surf and onto launching trolllies. Even the safety boat was grabbed and pulled out of the surf, ensuring that the engine wasn’t swamped. Tuesday will see the Capsize Club trying to sail again. Hopefully this week the state of the sea and the wind strength will allow a full evening of sailing, though the forecast is still for north easterlies, which will keep it quite cold but at least should be dry.

May 5th Tonight’s racing was overshadowed by the news when I got home that Robin Hadlow had died in the evening, probably whilst we were out sailing. I, like many others was shocked to hear Robin tell me on the night of the Dinner in January that he had been diagnosed with Cancer. I saw Robin, only a few weeks ago in their shop, he seemed very cheerful and positive about things and was just about to start a course of treatment. However things must have been worse than any of us knew about, to progress so quickly. I have known Robin and Sheila for many years. Sheila used to be the Secretary to our Electrical Manager when I worked in John Keay House in the 70’s. In those days, Robin was a member of PSC and owned and sailed a Scorpion. Robin dropped out of sailing for a few years but always maintained his links with the Club and can be seen on many of the “social” pictures in our archives. A couple of years ago Robin was given an old Tasar, which he had been doing up ready to sail, sadly he never got the chance to sail it more than once or twice. The first of the evening capsize club meets took place on Tuesday but the sailing part of it was curtailed due to a strong north easterly, which looked harmless enough from the shore but was much stronger than it looked on the sea. Polruan was reporting gusts of 30 knots and it was bitterly cold, so James and Adam demonstrated how to rig up the Picos. This was then followed under Anna & Liz’s tutelage by a lesson on tying knots. By the end of a session, everyone could tie a bow line round their waists single handed. I spent most of Wednesday sailing with Mike Pollard down at Mylor. Once again we were subjected to a cold northerly wind. We sailed right into Falmouth harbour and sailed past an Open 60 racing yacht. The name of the boat was in Russian and we couldn’t decipher it, but the boat looked a real cool racing machine. Lunch was taken on a mooring in the lee of the St. Mawes, again it was very serene, siting in the sun, slowly being rocked as we ate our sandwiches. And on to tonight, well the safety boat was on the water in good time and a course was set, so Jenny took the decision to start as advertised on time. The majority of the 16 boat fleet were in the starting area. Unfortunately some weren’t, us included. We had a lot of trouble just trying to sail out to the start. The wind was dying and coming offshore, and our speed was too slow. More frustratingly we had been very close to some of the other boats, indeed in front of some, but just suffered from sitting in flat spots We could see from a distance that the flags were flying from the safety boat, but couldn’t get there in time and started some 2 ½ minutes after the starting gun. Jeremy & Suzanne and Dennis, crewed tonight by Colin were way in front and doing a horizon job on us. Anyway we stuck to the task in hand which looked impossible, but with the shifty wind slowly made our way up through the fleet. We eventually caught and passed Dennis on the 3rd set of reaches and by the end of the next beat had just snuck in front of Jeremy. He managed to pull back and get an inside overlap on us at the jibe mark, which gave him back his lead and so we started the last beat trying to get through him. Dennis made up some of his lost ground on us by sailing in towards the cliffs whilst Jeremy and us continued our duel up the middle of the beat. Eventually we appeared to be climbing up well inside Jeremy and I thought for a while that we were going to win, but the ever changing wind conditions in the beach mark area, suddenly dealt us a bad deal. We were on the lay line for the beach marks when we were started to get headed, so much so, that when Jeremy tacked, he sailed ahead of us to claim the win. What was almost worse for us, was that Dennis too was charging in on the other lifted tack and we did well to mange to tack in front of him to secure 2nd place. Mike & Dave started the race just behind us and managed to overhaul Chris & Tony during the race, once again benefiting form his new sails. The handicap fleet was once again strung out over a long distance; such is the variety and difference in speeds. Way out in front was the RS400 of Steve Coello with Nigel riding shotgun, but couldn’t sail to their handicap finishing 3rd to the very speedy Allan Orton in his Laser. Allan’s corrected time placed him ahead of the Tasars. Close behind was Ron & Michelle Barrett in their Scorpion, they finished 2nd, benefiting from being able to fly their spinnaker on both reaching legs, certainly going faster than us on the reaches. It was a great shame for James Dowrick, who was hoping to emulate his good result from last Wednesday but he too was one of the victims who failed to get to the start line on time. He was one of the first to launch, but the Pico being the slowest boat on the water; just couldn’t find enough speed on the long run out to make the start so ended up sailing home instead. Kay and Craig seem determined to wrest the capsize crown from Chris and Tony, by managing a couple of capsizes, which put them right to the back of the fleet, before eventually retiring.

May 2nd For the last 2 years we have held our Tasar Open Meeting over this weekend and have had very good sailing winds, but this year another Club had already taken “our” weekend, so we were left with Club sailing. Saturday saw the first day of the “Capsize Club”, which is a series of sessions dedicated to getting our newcomers and some beginners more acclimatised to sailing without the hassle of racing which when you are learning is more often than not a step too far. The day was perfect for novices as there was a nice little breeze blowing and we had lots of people down for the afternoon. Our Club boats, the 2 Picos, Bug, Enterprise and the Bahia of Anna & Liz were put to full use and the majority of people taken out were encouraged to have a go at helming. All in all, this was a very good start to this aspect of Club life. The Sunday’s racing was the destined to be “Cup” day, a 3 races series, which was run by the Laser fleet, and was run on the water by Allan Orton and Tim Baily. The wind was quite a strong north easterly and very cold, with 30 knots blowing almost continuously at the Polruan weather station. It was certainly less than that in the bay but was somewhere in the region of 20 knots blowing from the north east with some stronger gusts thrown in from time to time. It all looked deceptively serene from the beach as we were in the lee of the wind, but anyone studying the sea would have seen that herring bone look, plus white horses further out, which promised fast & frantic sailing. Allan & Tim set an excellent course, which was to be sailed as an Olympic circuit, with a triangle followed by a run. Due to the strong conditions our fleet was decimated to only 8 boats, comprising 6 Tasars, Beacky’s Enterprise and Andrew & Sarah Kendall in their GP14, so rather than have our normal 2 classes, we all sailed as one fleet. By the end of the first beat the race appeared to split into 4 separate races. Dennis with Justin Phyall crewing shot into an early lead from Stacey with Steve Coello crewing. They pulled well away from Ken & myself and Jeremy & Suzanne. Behind us there was another battle between Mike and Dave against Chris & Tony. Further back, Beacky & Adam were tussling with Andrew & Sarah for the honours. Stacey and Steve eventually gave us all a lesson in heavy weather sailing, finally winning the shortened course by a margin of 2 minutes over Dennis & Justin. Jeremy & Suzanne and us had a very close race swapping our positions several times but the Hawkins eventually triumphed, passing us on the last reach to the beach marks. Mike and Dave are now getting to grips with their new sails and finished 4 minutes in front of Chris & Tony. Paul & Adam found it very hard going in the Enterprise, but finished just behind Mike on corrected time. Andrew & Sarah had a capsize and eventually retired. Lunch was provided by Emma, Maria & Ray who had produced toad in the hole with mash and peas and gave everybody the chance to relax and talk about the morning’s race. Eventually it became time to take to the water again. Mike & Dave, Beacky & Adam decided enough was enough, so we lost 2 of our fleet but Steve Mitchell & Polly arrived, decided that the conditions were too wild for their Merlin, but was loaned Justin’s Tasar. The conditions were almost as windy for the 2nd race and for a change Ken & I lead at the first mark. I think the wind had dropped a little and this was more suited to our weight. Jeremy & Stacey were our closest challengers and for 2 rounds we held them off until we had a bit of a disaster at the end of the 2nd run. I don’t know how it happened but the clew of our jib caught on the forestay and we were unable to pull the jib in to start the last beat. Whilst Ken was battling to sort the jib out Jeremy and Stacey shot past us. By the time the jib was sorted the other 2 were fast disappearing up the beat never to be caught, though Stacey did retire due to a port & starboard incident with Andrew at the start. The wind picked up a tad more for the 3rd race and just to show how windy it was, the spectators were treated to the sight of 3 Tasars capsizing. The first to go was Chris & Tony right on the start line. This was their 4th capsize in as many weeks, surely candidtaes for the annual Capsize Trophy. Next to go was Steve & Polly, whilst tacking and most surprisingly, Stacey & Steve. Stacey told me afterwards that the tiller extension caught in the boom whilst tacking. In those conditions any problems are swiftly dealt with by the wind. Stacey’s problems were compounded when his dagger board pulled through the casing and then took time to get it back into position before being able to right the boat. Meanwhile Dennis & Justin powered on through all the carnage, creating a healthy lead which they held to the end. Once again Jeremy & Suzanne had a good race to finish 2nd to our 3rd. The Race Officer taking into consideration the strong conditions wisely decided to shorten this race a round early, which did come as a relief. The results as expected were very tight but Dennis & Justin pipped Jeremy & Suzanne on equal point by his win in the last race whilst we finished equal points with Stacey but they had the advantage of a win in the first race to push us back into 4th. However judging by the smiles on all the faces afterwards in the dinghy park, today was adjudged a very good day of racing. Allan Orton was taking photographs from the safety boat and when I get a copy I will put some onto the gallery page, so look for “updated” on the front page of the web site sometime in the next week. I have also had an advert given to me for someone selling a “Buzz”. Ready to race! Hull, mast and attachments in very good condition. Sails in good condition. Foils in top condition, with padded storage bags. Under and Over covers and West Mersea launch trolley and trailer. Pictures: Buzz 859 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jude_anthonisz/sets/72157622484477995/ Sails - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jude_anthonisz/sets/72157622484469263/ Detail - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jude_anthonisz/sets/72157622608993608/ Test sails welcome.... Lying in Devon. Only £1,695 Contact Jude or Jean on 07971 409951 or 07866609769nk. Meanwhile this Tuesday will be the first of the regular Tuesday nights for the capsize Club. If you know someone who would like to try sailing then invite them down to have a go. Ongoing newcomers are the life blood of the Club. Sailing is like a bug, once tried then you can become hooked on one of the only sports that you can start as a youth and still continue into your later years.

April 28th I’d had a very pleasant day today, sailing at Falmouth in Polly’s boat. We arrived at Mylor just after 10.30. We had a pleasant cup of coffee in the café sitting outside overlooking the moorings, with a weak watery sun shining down on us then decamped to board his boat, which is on a swinging mooring. We spent about 30 minutes, doing some fettling, then unfurled the jib, slipped the mooring and sailed out into the Carrick roads. By this time there was quite a fresh breeze blowing and we were sailing along at about 5 knots, heeled over, so left the mainsail down. Our course took us down to Falmouth and we sailed along in the lee of the Coast Guard Station and then took a heading towards St. Mawes. To our delight in the area of castle buoy we came across up to 8 Dolphins leaping out of the water. It was a super sight to see and at one time came quite close to us and swam in our area for a good 10 minutes before swimming off. The breeze was still quite fresh so we sailed up past St. Mawes as far as Percuil, where we found a sheltered mooring that wasn’t occupied, moored up, furled the jib, warmed up our pasties, then sat in the sun eating them whilst putting the world to rights. Afterwards we carried out some more work on the boat, before leaving out temporary berth and sailed out into the Carrick Roads again, onto St. Just, then back across the river to Restronguet before finally picking up our mooring to complete our day’s sail. The water and wind down there were promising of a good night’s racing at Porthpean to come. What a perfect day. By the time I arrived at the Club I was greeted by the site of Ron & Michelle’s Scorpion, rigged at the top of the slipway and a much reduced onshore breeze. The conditions were such that a total of 18 boats were being prepared for the 4th race of the Wednesday series. Ken arrived, fresh from day 3 of his Sailing Instructor’s course that he is taking at Anna & Liz’s sailing school. By this time Ron & Michelle had launched and were to be seen sailing along at a reasonable pace with their spinnaker flying. However in the course of about 20 minutes the breeze started to drop and it was evident that the good sailing breeze was just fading away. The question now was would it last long enough for a race. Well the majority obviously thought so and hastily launched through the low surf with the tide almost on the slipway. We were rigged at the top of the slipway, but it was obvious that if we raced then it would be a very slow affair, with the crew cramped up in the front of the boat. Frankly after the fantastic day of sailing last Sunday, the thought of just crawling along and maybe becoming completely becalmed, just didn’t appeal to us so we aborted our launching. Meanwhile, the fleet struggled to get to the beach marks, where there was a very light breeze. Certainly enough breeze to push the boats along. I started to regret our decision, but the sight of the boats just crawling along, made the decision feel not so bad after all. Steve Wingrove in his Solo couldn’t get there at all and was finally towed in by the safety boat. In many ways the night belonged to James Dowrick. James sailed one of the Club Picos and excelled in the light conditions, finishing 2nd on corrected time, which was a very good achievement for him, so well done James. The handicap race was won, however, by Allan Orton, who finished some 7 minutes in front of James even on corrected time. Ron & Michelle won the battle of the 2 Scorpions. Jeremy & Suzanne, who had to replace their mast pin before sailing, had the best start and managed to sail into the best of the breeze and led all the way round, finishing 7 minutes in front of the next Tasar crewed by Dennis & Justin, certainly not the conditions that Dennis would normally go out in. In distance they were not too far behind, but so light had the breeze become that it took minutes to sail a distance of about 100 metres. Due to the light conditions the race was shortened to just one round, much to the relief of all who were still out there. John Hill was a victim of the fading breeze, he eventually got to the start line almost 10 minutes after the start, but sailed on and even overtook several boats, which in itself was very satisfactory but couldn’t save ant time on his handicap, but put me to shame for not competing. Patrick from the Eden Project came down last night to see if anyone wanted a crew. He has given me his telephone number, which is 07811174762. He has done some sailing so knows what he is doing in a boat.

April 25th Well I’m bound to be feeling happy as today we had 2 wins, which in itself was very satisfying, but what made it feel all the better was the conditions were very challenging, with a swirling wind ranging from force 2 to 4 in the gustier moments. Yes dinghy sailing doesn’t get much better than this, as after the last few weeks of fairly demure sailing we were at last able to hike as hard as possible and to have some flying reaches. Stacey & Steve Wingrove, our safety boat drivers for the day took advantage of the stiffer breeze to set a large triangular course for us to sail round which was just right for our bay and the fresh wind conditions, also getting us far enough out so as to avoid some of the affects of trickier moments at the beach marks. Jeremy was adjudged over the line at the start of the morning race and I knew that we were very close to him, so rather than just blast off into oblivion I thought it expedient to sail towards the safety boat and check our status. As it happened we were ok and could have blasted off, but better to be safe than risk being disqualified. Well Jeremy & Suzanne’s early start didn’t hurt them as they rounded the pin end start buoy, quite quickly and were almost leading at the end of the beat. In fact it was getting quite crowded at the end of the beat as Justin & Donna in their Tasar were very close as was Steve Mitchell and Polly in their Merlin. 2 good reaches went very nicely for us and we started the 2nd round with a healthy lead but to our consternation Steve & Jeremy were lifted up a long way inside us. What was happening to our pointing ability? It appeared to have just disappeared. By the time we sailed on the opposite tack to try and cross them, Jeremy had sailed through us and Steve was only just behind us. These positions remained on the reaches until we started the last beat. We tacked off early to try and escape the dirty wind in front, shortly after Jeremy tacked to cover us and I was pleased to see that we crossed ahead of them. We then realised that they were having problems with their jib. The shackle holding the sheets on had come undone. Fortunately for them the pin was still there so they managed to re set it and carry on, but were passed by Dennis and Nathan whilst sorting them selves out. So did we get a lucky win or would we have passed Jeremy on the beat? Well I’m honestly not sure, but the boat was certainly pointing better again, so I put the previous disaster on the beat to the fact that Steve & Jeremy rounded straight onto the inside of a large lift and we were stuck on the outside of it. Back in the handicap fleet it looked like Steve’s Merlin would easily win on handicap but not so, the slowest boat in the fleet, the RS Feva sailed by Nigel and James, came out on top on corrected time by 15 seconds. Beacky & Adam sailed well to finish on the water in front of the faster Scorpion of Kay & Craig. Andrew & Jenny Kendall are still waiting to finish their Scorpion so are sailing in their other boat, a GP14, which I am sure is a lot more difficult to control at times. The wind had swung from south west into a more westerly direction by the time we sailed out for an Olympic configured course for the afternoon race, but as a consequence was still very shifty and quite gusty and the gusts certainly caused quite a few capsizes and retirements. The start line had quite a lot of port bias on it and a few of us decided that a port hand flyer was the thing to try. We came flying in to the start line from a long way out and sailed across the entire fleet, which in itself is a very satisfying manoeuvre. We took advantage of what appeared to be some useful wind shifts and arrived at the beach marks with a very healthy lead, which we maintained for the rest of the race. Once again Jeremy & Suzanne were hot on our heals and at times appeared to be closing the gap and then suddenly we would spurt further ahead again. The course for this race was an Olympic one and most unusually Jeremy & Suzanne capsized on the 2nd and last run. They were upside down for a time but still righted their Tasar and sailed on to finish in front of Dennis & Nathan. Meanwhile further back, Justin and Donna were sailing well, being quite a way in front of Chris & Tony, who once again capsized, that’s 3 times in as many weeks. Is this going to be a pattern for the rest of the season? Let’s hope not. The handicap fleet was decimated by the stronger winds, with quite a few capsizing and then deciding to retire. Kay & Craig were flung out of their Scorpion on one of the reaches. Kay doesn’t know what happened. One moment they were sailing along, the next they were both out of the boat, which for a short time sailed on without them, before rolling in and going turtle. Nigel & James once again had a very good race, at one time being very close to Beacky & Adam in the faster Enterprise. Once again the Feva’s handicap proved to be unbeatable. This time finishing in front of Steve’s Merlin by a bigger margin, leaving Beacky & Adam, the only other finishers to get another 3rd. Don’t forget, the Capsize Club starts next Saturday and we are hoping to get full use of our new Picos and Bug. I’m not sure how many people will turn up to sail, but if you think you can help and would like to take someone out in your boat, or man the safety boat, then come along. I believe it starts at 14.00, which means being there a bit earlier. After Saturday the Capsize Club moves to its more normal slot of Tuesday evenings. BTW It's only 8 months to Christmas!

April 21st Tonight was probably the coldest night of the year for sailing, yes I know we are still in April and the weather is quite nice during the day but this evening the air temperature was very low. Conditions didn’t look too good as the wind was almost boxing the compass. There was a Clay ship anchored in the bay and it was laying in a SW direction, but the breeze nearer the Club was swinging form North westerly right round at times to a north easterly. Anyway there were enough people who wanted to sail, so we all rigged. Mike Voyzey and Dave manned the safety boat and laid a course to suit a southerly breeze. In fact the first round did give us a beat to the 1st mark and as went into the starting sequence everything looked ok for a sail in a very light force 1 breeze. I was anxious to sail in towards the cliffs and for some silly reason elected to try and cross the fleet on port. As the final seconds counted down it became obvious that this wasn’t going to work so ended up tacking in front of John Hill. However there was so little wind that our tack wasn’t completed in time and we collided. I had no option but to do my turns and then we were off. At that stage I still thought that we might salvage something, but could see Jeremy & Suzanne disappearing into the distance. ¾ up the beat things weren’t looking too bad, but then the wind started to fade and we suffered big time. Jeremy was long gone round the mark followed by Steve Coello & Nigel in Steve’s RS400, first time out this year. Next to round was Dennis with Justin crewing just in front of Chris & Tony. By the time we rounded the whole bunch were half way up the first reach, whilst we were back with some of the leaders of the handicap fleet. Janet & Pete were alongside at one time. Anyway we made the best of a bad job and very slowly started to catch up with Dennis & Chris. By the time we gybed, we were very close to Chris and managed to drift past them on the ay to the beach marks. By this time conditions were getting bad, the breeze was almost non existent and what was left turned the beat into a one tacker. By this stage quite a few of the handicap fleet decided that enough was enough and headed for the beach, but the Tasars and one or two others battled on, which proved a great test of everyone’s patience. It was a shame really as we had 18 boats on the water which is the best turn out of the year so far. We hung on and at one stage closed up quite close to Dennis & Justin, but couldn’t catch them before we arrived at the beach marks for a shortened course. Colin Wainwright made his debut tonight and sailed into 4th position. I know he didn’t enjoy the sailing conditions but was very pleased to get such a good result. Steve Wingrove was quite a bit further back but sailed into 3rd position, again a good place in the dire conditions. Another sailor making his debut tonight was Clive Stevens who claimed a 7th. It was a great relief to eventually get back into the Clubhouse for some warmth and Jenny’s bacon butties. Now our eyes turn towards Sunday when we should be able to get settled again after the Tasar Open last weekend.

April 17th & 18th The Tasar SW Area Championships were held this weekend, rather earlier than we would have liked, but once again blessed with very nice weather. Hosting an event such as this in April, can prove so troublesome as the weather can be very changeable. For the 3rd year running we had beautiful clear skies with plenty of sunshine, but unlike the last 2 years the wind was frustratingly much lighter. Instead of the brisk offshore winds we wanted, we had to put up with the continuing light easterlies on Saturday. In fact the breeze felt quite fresh up at the Clubhouse and there were lots of white horses out in the bay as a south easterly blew straight in to the shore. The forecast was for it to fall lighter as the day went on, which again gives other problems as we would be left with little wind and a wallowing lumpy sea. 4 visitors helped swell the Porthpean fleet to 11. One visitor who couldn’t make it was the Tasar Chairman, John Trip, who fell foul of the Icelandic volcanic Ash and was marooned in Finland. However 3 visitors came from Torbay and one other from Wimbleball. 2 races were scheduled for Saturday with another 3 on Sunday. The falling tide on Saturday gave us quite a few waves to sail through but this was accomplished successfully by all. The course to be sailed was a “q” shape, which suits the Tasars downwind speed, well it would have if there was enough wind to plane, but unfortunately there was hardly enough wind to get 2 on the side deck. Our Race Officer for the weekend was Ron Barret managed to get all 5 races in. He was ably assisted at various times by Michelle, Bruce Keeping, Colin Wainwright and Nigel, James and Sophie Dowrick. The courses were just the right length and time for the light conditions that dominated this year’s open meeting. We all had high hopes for the 1st race but I managed to get ourselves too far down the start line and was forced over early. Fortunately we were by the pin end buoy so a quick gybe and an Irish port hand flyer, which involves passing behind the entire fleet, was our fate. Luckily for us we arrived at the windward mark, in 2nd place just behind Jeremy & Suzanne, a position we held until we started the short run. I made a big mistake here by not gybing straight away and was punished by 2 boats passing inside us. The Malcolm & Frank Davies boat (current double National Champions) was one of them and they went on to pass Jeremy and take the win, and we closed up to take a lucky 3rd place, when John Lawton, one of our visitors hit the final mark and had to do a 360. Just behind was John Mark & Steve Coello, and surprisingly behind them was Stacey & Tim Baily. For the 2nd race, I managed a perfect port hand flyer, crossing the entire fleet, but this time we arrived at the windward mark in 7th place. Well up ahead was Stacey and Tim, clearly with a point to make. They must have flown up the first beat as they had opened up an enormous lead and looked unassailable. The Davies boat in 6th place was just in front of us, but in the space of 2 reaches and a run had passed everyone but Stacey, who was still travelling very fast. Incredibly the Davies team slowly closed the gap, but Stacey hung on to take the shortened course win by a margin of just 1 foot. Clearly close racing. We did improve a bit to finish 6th but Tony & Steve had a very encouraging 4th, finishing just ahead of Justin Phyall, crewed by Allan Orton. We had another very good social in the evening with an excellent BBQ cooked by Simon Pryce, with a side salad provided by Maria and her Dad & maybe one or two others but not sure about that. Live music was provided by a duo, vocalist & guitar, part of the Johnny Fuller Band. They proved very popular getting people up and dancing. Sunday dawned with an ominous calm, the bay was looking glassy, but the sun was shining brightly. The lumpy sea of Saturday had flattened right out but the wind was nowhere to be seen. Postponement was the order of the day, until a very light southerly wind appeared in the bay. A course was set, we launched and at just after midday the 3rd race of the series started. Now my secret weapon of the day came into play, the yellow sailing shorts made their first appearance of the season. Clearly this had a devastating affect on everyone but the Davies as we powered away to record a 2nd place, ahead of Stacey. In 4th place this time were Tony & Sandy Paine, our visitors from Wimbleball, adjusting well to the pleasures of sailing on the sea instead of their restrictive reservoir. A quick pit stop for lunch was undertaken before we all launched into lighter conditions for the last 2 races. This first race gave another win to the Davies team, but once again we had the best of the rest with another 2nd, but the beats were tricky and utmost concentration was demanded at all times. Tony & Sandy had a bit of bad luck in this race. Apparently he moved one of his stays forward on the run, the end stop broke and the mast went over the side. At long last a safety boat was really needed to tow them back to shore. The 4th race proved disastrous for Stacey as he never recovered from being an early starter and couldn’t pull enough back to record better than 9th. We had another good race by finishing 2nd again with the Hawkins finishing 3rd, Team Justin 4th and an improving Simon Pryce, crewed by Adam Eastham 5th. The 5th race started as soon as possible after the 4th race and to nobody’s surprise saw the Davies team, once again leading and pulling away from the rest of the fleet to take another win. Jeremy got the better of us this time, finishing 2nd to our 3rd. Stacey after a better start moved up to take 4th spot and a very happy Simon, pipped Justin to 5th place. John & Steve, tiring of the ultra light conditions, headed home for an early bath. Porthpean looked its normal idyllic self in the late afternoon sun, with the bay sparkling in the bright April sunshine as the Prizegiving took place. Since writing this blog I have been down to the Club to get my boat which needs some cleats replacing, plus new hatch covers and it was a perfect day for sailing, with glorious blue skies, sunshine and a cracking north westerly breeze, blowing that would have put is in full hiking mode. Our weather is so frustrating sometimes!

April 13th It was a sad day in the Rigby household today when our 2 Grand daughters finally went home to Bristol. Still they went home happy after almost 2 weeks of laughter and sometimes tears. The words they come out with are really very funny at times. My moments of coupling 2 baby buggies together with pieces of string have come to an end for a few weeks as also dealing with the cry of “Granddad I want a poo”, from Katie. Hopefully we can look forward to some regular nights of unbroken sleep again. Weather-wise, we are in a fairly settled spell, with some nice sunny days coupled with our continuing north easterlies, but today we were back to grey and overcast conditions, with a cold north easterly wind, so things weren’t looking too inviting as we turned up at the Club for the 2nd of the Wednesday sailing nights. Surprisingly we had very good turnout of 16 boats, which looked very impressive as we all lined up on a short beach, at high tide. Just before we rigged the boats, we were entertained for a few minutes by the sight of 2 dolphins leaping out of the water as they swam almost to the beach before veering off towards Silvermine. That was the first time that I and quite a few of the others have seen Dolphins in the bay. Dennis & Justin were our safety boat cover for the evening and set an appropriate course, giving us a beat across the bay from right to left. We rarely get the wind in this direction, so gave us an opportunity to try and find the best ways up the beat. The wind itself was quite light, with barely enough to get 2 on the side deck and not enough to induce any planning downwind. We had a 5 Tasar fleet; Jeremy was back on the water after a very quick and impressive repair to the bow of his Tasar, and was itching to give it a go. The start line was slightly port biased, but with a short line, no one fancied their chances of clearing the fleet, which was as well as both Jeremy and us arrived just a little too early at the pin end. Jeremy chose to gybe early and flit through the fleet. I thought I had timed it perfectly but had to shoot over just a second early but as we were so close to the buoy, managed to gybe round the buoy and then try and cut through the fleet, before having to tack to avoid Beacky’s Enterprise travelling at ramming speed. The fleet split quite wide going up the beat with some heading out to sea to bang a corner whilst some elected to sail towards the shore before tacking for the mark. We did a bit of both, but gravitated more towards the shore, which proved partly beneficial as we closed right up on Jeremy and lo and behold we arrived at the windward mark first with John & Steve 2nd & Jeremy & Suzanne just behind them. John & Steve made some inroads into our lead on the reaches but crucially we started the 2nd round in the lead and gradually ground out a reasonable distance on the others. Meanwhile the Hawkins closed up to 2nd but on the last round John & Steve used their better offwind speed to overtake and finish in 2nd. Unfortunately it transpired that Jeremy had a leaking bailer and was carrying a substantial amount of water which helped slow him down. Just behind, snapping at their heels were Chris & Tony, excelling after their high positional finish on Sunday. Meanwhile back in the handicap fleet Allan Orton’s Laser was showing good speed yet again, but still finished behind John Hill in his Supernova, but close enough to take the win on corrected time by a margin of 13 seconds. A minute or so further back was Beacky and Adam in the Enterprise, whilst Kay & Craig in their first outing of the season made it up to 4th. I’m afraid that it was so tense in the Tasar fleet that I didn’t have enough time to be able to focus on what was happening with the handicappers, but I am sure that there must have been some close calls at times as I did hear quite a few “Starboards!!!” at various times. James Dowrick took one of the new Laser Picos out for a sail and enjoyed it immensely, though it was going rather slow due to the reefed mainsail. As usual the slower boats suffered as evening drew on with the breeze slowly dying, thus slowing them right down and making their results appear much worse than they actually were. This weekend sees the first Open Meeting of the season for the Tasar fleet. We are expecting some visitors from Babbacombe, Wimbleball and one from Scotland. The forecast appears to be for light northerlies, so the safety boats should have an easy life. There is a BBQ on Saturday evening, which is open to all Club members coupled with a live music band, which I am told are very good. Hopefully the Clubhouse will be rocking and rolling.

April 11th The sunny weather promised to us was actually delivered, together with a building north easterly breeze, it looked like we would be in for purple sailing weather again. Something like 19 boats launched, including 7 Tasars for a course direction very rarely sailed. In fact so rare that I can’t remember the last time it happened. The wind was probably NNE which gave a beat from the beach marks towards Polkerris. Anna & Liz, fresh from the first week of their sailing school were our safety boat crew for the day and together with Katie Eastham, set a very challenging triangular course. By the time we started we were into full on hiking weather and only ½ hr late we blasted off into the still cold waters of St. Austell Bay. My first big mistake was electing to head out to sea, on port before tacking across to the mark. Ken & I were horror struck when we saw 5 Tasars in front of us. We were only just in front of Nigel & James in the Feva, Beacky & Adam in the Enterprise, whilst Allan Orton was also right up there. Stacey & Lucy were the first to round followed by Dennis & Brian, whilst we just managed to round with Jeremy, sailing with son Finn and Chris & Tony. A long broad reach took us towards Blackhead before we gybed and had a fairly fast reach back to the beach marks, still behind Stacey, Dennis & Jeremy. By the end of the next beat Jeremy & Finn had swept into the lead, helped somewhat by Stacey who retired due to Lucy not liking the fresh conditions. Chris decided to demonstrate to Tony how he capsized the previous Sunday by turning the boat over again. Meanwhile we closed up on Dennis and Brian and were able to overtake them on the last beat. However Jeremy retained his lead to the finish to take the win. Now at this moment in time I don’t have a copy of the results so not sure what happened in the handicap fleet, but Nigel & James in the Feva made enough time to hold their handicap against Allan Orton who had pulled miles in front of the other Lasers. Janet & Pete Barnes in their Kestrel were never far behind and surely must have been up there in the results. The breeze had swung into the south for the afternoon and the course was duly shifted to suit the new wind direction. Justin & Donna had a good port start to cross the fleet, but we pulled through and got to the first mark with a good lead. Stacey, this time crewed by Nathan had an unusually poor start and was lying in 4th, but managed to overtake Dennis and close up a few lengths on Justin. Jeremy had to sit this race out as the bow plate on the front of his Tasar snapped off as he pulled the boat ashore in the lunch period. What a shame as the warranty only expired last week! By the end of the 3rd beat Stacey had passed Justin and closed right up on us, unfortunately the wind was dying by the minute and we started what was the last beat in almost no wind. In fact we sat in irons for quite a while whilst the boat slapped around in the choppy windless water. Sailing was now almost impossible and more than ½ the fleet decided to call it a day and paddle back to the shore. We were now down to 3 Tasars and Stacey and us headed out to sea, whilst Chris & Tony, behind by quite a distance chanced their arm by heading in towards the cliffs. Stacey sailed around us and found a slight breeze, as also Chris & Tony, who rounded 2nd. Eventually we found a share of the light breeze and managed to make it to the windward mark before the last painful run back to the beach marks. So I had successfully turned a rock solid 1st position into a 3rd in the course of 2 legs, indeed a bad day at the office. Maybe things could have been worse if the others hadn’t retired. The handicap fleet too was decimated. Allan who had a large lead, retired and Nigel & James who again were doing well fell away as the wind died, allowing Beacky & Adam to sneak away on the beat and take the win. Actually it was a very eventful day, very sunny and good sailing winds in the main, also a very good turnout, but hopefully not too many days when the wind dies away again like today this season.

April 7th The weathermen forecasted that the unsettled weather that we have had over the last 3 weeks would finally end, with a high pressure system drifting over us on Wednesday. Sure enough the wet & cloudy Tuesday gave way to much better conditions for our first Wednesday race of the season. Arriving at Porthpean we were greeted by cloudless skies, with the sun sinking in the west and a quite strong and gusty north westerly wind. Not only was it gusty but extremely variable as well and as an extra bonus it felt very cold. Certainly too early for the yellow sailing shorts to come out of my kit bag. Jeremy & Suzanne had swapped duties with Mike Voyzey and laid a very similar course to Sunday’s. The 11 boat fleet only had 3 Tasars racing, so all the close competition was to be in the Handicap fleet. There was a major wind shift right at the start and it was almost impossible to lay the line on starboard. Quite a lot of tacking took place up the first beat, but at the beach marks it was Allan Orton & Tim Baily in their Lasers who rounded 1st & 2nd. We were right behind Tim and passed him quite quickly but Allan proved to be equally as fast as us down wind and started the 2nd beat in the lead, a lead that he held until we passed him somewhere on the 2nd reach. Stacey, sailing with daughter Lucy was very late to start and attempted the almost impossible task of trying to catch Chris & Tony. Maybe they felt guilty about being so far in front of Stacey that they collided with the first of the beach marks. Very honourably they completed their penalty turn only to resume their course and immediately collide with the 2nd beach mark. The resulting 2nd penalty turn, cost them lots of time, so much so that Stacey overhauled them on the last beat to slot into 2nd place in the Tasar fleet. John Mark, who normally sails with Steve Coello couldn’t make it, so Steve took his Laser and had a good race to take 2nd place overall in front of the Enterprise of Beacky & Adam, who dislodged Tim down to 4th. Steve Wingrove sailed into 5th and quite surprisingly, John Hill, who normally finishes in the first 3, only managed 6th. Anna Weld crewed by Jason in the Vago was another victim of being late to the start, clawed up to 7th to beat Nick Haskins in his new Laser. As it was a Wednesday and as Jenny March was our timekeeper, we were very pleased to see that she continued her tradition of cooking bacon butties, but what a blow, the price has shot up to £1.00 each!!

April 4th Easter Cup 2010, and what a difference a day makes. It is only the 2nd week of the season and we were straight into the Easter Cup, with race 1 scheduled for Saturday afternoon and then 2 more races on the Sunday. Well Saturday proved a washout, with steady rain falling all day. This was coupled to a fresh easterly wind, pushing waves onto a dismal looking beach. There was no rush to take off any boat covers and an easy decision was made to cancel racing for the day and try and get 3 races in on the Sunday. This was a good decision for me as it allowed me to get to Exeter in good time to pick up our 2 Grand daughters who will be staying with us for a week. We also had our Grandson down for the weekend so it was a noisy house at chez Rigby over Easter. Sunday dawned as forecast with blue skies, some fast moving clouds and an all important north westerly breeze which had flattened the sea down and was the precursor for a fantastic day of dinghy racing. The Easter Cup was to be competed for by the handicap fleet and the Tasar fleet, and there was close competition in each fleet. Both Simon Pryce and Allan Orton elected to take their Lasers to race in the handicap fleet, joining Tim Baily and Nick Haskins. This was also going to be the first race of 2010 for Ron & Michelle Barret, but although they launched, an early capsize put paid to them competing, whilst 6 Tasars made up the other fleet. Both fleets could have been swelled by others entering, but the fresh conditions and possible lack of suitable crews put some of the helms off. Meanwhile in the Tasar fleet the competition was proving to being very hot indeed. Jeremy & Suzanne were all ready to carry on their winning ways, but had extra competition this week when Dennis made his first appearance of the season, ably crewed by my son Neil. John Mark & Steve Coello were also putting in their first appearance of the year as were Father and Daughter Mike & Vicky Voyzez, with their new sails. Chris Hazel, in the absence of Tony, paired up with super sub Sarah Kendall. Justin was also out with a very nervous Donna for only her 2nd time in racing conditions. So the scene was set for some exciting racing, where legs would be stretched, equipment tested and the temperature of the water would be sampled by quite a few. The fresh conditions proved rather lively for some, with all four Lasers dropping in at sometime or other. There were some mega windshifts on the beat, which caused quite a few opportunities to either gain or lose positions. Allan Orton proved too good for the rest of them, but was disqualified for not rounding the start line after being adjudged over just before the start, thus promoting Simon to first place. Jeremy & Suzanne powered straight into the lead, followed by Dennis & Neil. We seized an opportunity on the first run, overtaking Dennis and closing up on the Hawkins, but Dennis was through us again on the next beat. Meanwhile, Mike & Vicky had a rudder issue and retired, whilst Chris and Sarah, capsized, leaving John & Steve to chase us from behind. A tasty lunch prepared by Maria & Ray was eagerly eaten by us hungry sailors and then we were ready for 2 more races. The deal was that the winner of race 1 from the handicap fleet was to be on Safety boat duty for race 2 and the winner of the Tasar fleet in race 2 was to be on the Safety boat for race 3. This allowed Beacky & Adam out to join the Lasers, but put Simon into the safety boat. True to form Allan had a blinder of a race beating all the others by quite a significant margin. However in the Tasar fleet it was our turn to shine. We took an early lead, but were passed on one of the beats by Dennis & Neil, but a good reach by took us through to the lead again. This time we managed to pull away from our pursuers and take a win. Jeremy & Suzanne had been steadily reeling in Dennis and just managed to pass them to take 2nd place. That was it then a win a piece for the Hawkins and us, but we had to take the safety boat, thus preventing us any chance of winning. Simon was back out for the 3rd race, but couldn’t match the speed of Allan. Beacky had some sort of problem and retired, but there was still a lot of action going on in the Tasar fleet. The Hawkins and Chris Hazell were too eager to start the 3rd race and had to return and start again. Leading at the end of the first beat, almost to their surprise, was Justin and Donna, closely followed by John & Steve. Their downwind speed was too much for Justin, overtaking them to start the 2nd round in the lead. By the time the last beat started, Jeremy was right up with the John & Dennis. All 3 sailed the last beat differently and from where we were sitting in the safety boat it looked like John had sailed himself right out of it. Jeremy swept into the lead and John and Steve, who looked like they had dropped down to 3rd suddenly found a wind shift in their favour and sailed through Dennis, to take 2nd place, and all 3 finished within 13 seconds of each other. Very close racing indeed, and on this showing it appears that 2010 will see some of the closest racing for years, especially as there are quite a few other top helms still to make their first appearance of the season.

March 28th Well we’re off again, yes only 16 weeks since we closed the 2009 season, something like a total of 14 boats launched to start the 2010 season. The winter has been long and hard and as British Summer Time finally appeared so the weather Gods have decreed that we will have some more winter weather with another unsettled, cold week to come, which will probably be worse in the north of the country, but wet and windy for us. Today was the first sail for Nick Haskins in his new Laser, a first outing for Robert & Hadyn McIntrye in their 420, a first sail for Johnny Saville and Rachel Bryant in their Laser 2000. Plus it was also the first sail for Donna in Justin Phyall’s Tasar.

Last Wednesday the predicted forecast for today didn’t give us any chance of sailing with a forecast of 20 plus knots of south easterly winds coupled with heavy rain. In fact once again the met office was completely wrong. The wind was only a very light southerly breeze and the rain was lurking further out to the west, giving us a very overcast day with clouds hugging the cliff tops. However it was cold and certainly didn’t look as nice as we hoped, but then it usually is cold at this time of the year with the water temperature even colder than normal. Roll on the summer. Due to the clocks going forward overnight the race time was postponed until 12.00 to allow everyone who wanted to sail sufficient time to be ready. The wind for the first race was a very light southerly, so light that there was no hiking, and the boats tracked through the water rather slowly. There was a good turnout in the Tasar fleet with 6 on the water and even better for Jeremy & Suzanne Hawkins, who started the season off with 2 wins, laying down their marker for the rest of us. Allan Orton’s Tasar is still being refurbished so he borrowed Stacey’s Tasar and though initially close to Jeremy slowly fell back. We had a poor start and a very poor first beat in both races which dropped us down the fleet and just couldn’t make any inroads into Allan nor Jeremy. It was also a good start of the season for Steve Wingrove in his Solo, winning the first race in the handicap division and a good start also for Janet & Pete Barnes winning the second race. By the time we were ready to sail the 2nd race, the rain had arrived and the wind had swung to the south east, causing our Safety Boat crews for the day, Nigel, James & Beacky to re lay the marks. The second race, held after lunch, was sailed in another light breeze, coupled with a lumpy sea, the breeze did pick up enough in the latter parts of the race to get 2 on the side for sailing upwind, but only sporadically, not what we really want, and certainly not enough offwind to allow the boats to plane, but I am sure the fresher conditions and even stronger ones will be with us at some time this season. Oh yes, I am aware that some of the pictures on the front page are not appearing, but I should get round to fixing the glitch sometime this week.

March 15th Yesterday Sunday 14th saw the start of the 2010 GP series. I was out sailing so recorded it and what a bore it proved to be. We’ve had months of hype about how close this series will be but in reality it looks as if the pole positions will just about reflect the eventual finishing positions. The cars are slower because they are carrying far more fuel and the only time a driver will pit is to change tyres and that is scheduled for only once in a race. Overtaking opportunities are almost nil. Thank goodness I have a fast forward button!! I said I was sailing yesterday, well Ken and I started our season off a fortnight early by going to the Exmoor Beastie, which is held at Wimbleball Lake, a 2 ½ hr drive from St. Austell and we made up a fleet of 50 boats, the majority of us were visitors, well I think so but the results haven’t appeared on their web site yet so can’t say for sure. The Beastie is a 3 hr pursuit race, which was scheduled to start at 12.00. There was no doubt that it would start on time as we had quite a fresh north westerly blowing down the reservoir. One thing I noticed that out of 50 entries only 2 of them were built in wood, one was a beautiful 20 year old Merlin and the other was a hornet. There were also some new dinghies putting in an appearance. One of those was the new Devotti D1. In all honesty not the prettiest of boats but designed to suit the larger framed person. It is a single handed boat with mainsail and asymmetrical spinnaker, and thought to be very fast so would be starting somewhere after us. He never caught us and we realised why when we came ashore. He was already there with the boat all packed up ready to go home. He told me that the conditions were too gusty for him and he had a couple of duckings before he retired. The water was COLD, they had ice on it only 2 weeks ago and at over 1000 feet above sea level the water never gets warm. Another new boat that was there was the very pretty K1. A single handed keel boat. I’m not sure how fast this boat is, but suspect that it may be slower than a Tasar. Again we never saw it whilst we were racing so not sure what happened to him. If it is slower then it started earlier and we never caught it. Again I will have to wait and see the results. Last week there was a very nice new modern FRP Scorpion at the dinghy show, with white topsides and a red and white hull. This boat was brand new and was out racing with us. Unfortunately we never caught it in time. We were overtaken by 3 faster boats, a Hornet, Fireball and an RS400. There were also about 12 Phantoms sailing. These are deemed slower than a Tasar, but the top boys pulled away from us whilst we managed to pass a few of the slower ones. We made up a small fleet of 3 Tasars, and after 20 minutes we were well and truly last. The other 2 were rapidly disappearing in the distance. My boat handling skills were certainly rusty. We were getting left behind on the beats in the very gusty quite fresh breeze. About 20 minutes into the race Ken made the alarming discovery that our spanner lever had split and was in danger of tearing off the gooseneck. He managed to tie part of the outhaul onto it just in case it did snap off and then I wouldn’t lose it. Anyway we made the decision to carry on until it broke. The pursuit race uses the whole of the reservoir and we were doing a lap in about 50 minutes. We started to pull back the other 2 Tasars on the down wind legs and after 40 minutes had taken the lead, which we promptly lost on the next long beat, by just being in the wrong place as the wind swirled around. We took the lead again almost immediately we started the down wind legs and pulled out a huge lead on them which we held throughout the rest of the race. The spanner held together and hopefully will be welded whole again this week. Our official finishing position was given as 15th, which was a huge improvement on last year when we started 5 minutes late sailing in very light conditions. As a shake down exercise the day was a success as it should allow me to have the spanner ready for the start of our season and to sort out one or two other issues I have. The boat had been leaking a fair amount of water towards the end of last year but repairs over the winter seamed to have cured it for the moment at least. Today I am aching, my bottom is exceedingly sore. 3 months lay off has softened the muscles somewhat and 3 hours of sitting on a hard deck now makes it painful to sit down. Ken’s fingers were cut using the kicker and I think we were both relieved to climb back into the car to make the long journey home. So the countdown clock is in the low teens, the weather of late has now started to improve, winter is slipping behind us and Spring is almost here. Yes we are almost ready to start another sailing season.

March 8th We are now into March and as usual the first weekend in March hosts the dinghy show at Alexandra Palace. 5 Members of PSC Steve EWingrove, Chris Hazell, Clive Stepehns, Ken & myself travelled there this weekend. Once again it was a dazzling affair with so much to see and do. It is only on for a weekend and most of us could only be there for one day, but you could easily spend the entire 2 days there if you wanted to look at everything in detail and spend some time listening to some of the talks and lectures. There were some new boats to look at. The new RS100 has figured a lot in the Y&Y over the last 12 months and the production boats are now rolling of the production lines in Thailand or somewhere in the Far East, where labour is ridiculously cheap compared to UK rates. The RS 100 is a single handed boat with an asymmetrical spinnaker. It looked very nice indeed with its carbon bits and pieces and Mylar sail, and with pre sales topping 160 looks sure of success. The Devotti D1 was another new single handed dinghy, but to my eyes not as pretty as the RS100 and as it is built in Italy, comes out a lot more expensive than the RS. Another newcomer that caught my eye was the “Icon”. This is an NS14 hull with a larger rig on it. The NS14 is what the Tasar started life as back in the 70’s, but the boat has been developed quite a lot over they years and has evolved into a very sleek looking dinghy. It has a much thicker rotating mast than a Tasar, a squared off head on the main and really looks the business but whether it will sell well over here without a large manufacturer pushing it is another matter, though at about £3000 cheaper than a Tasar looks seriously good value for money. I found the Redwing stand in one of the halls. Now the Redwing dinghy was one of the first to sail at Porthpean. It was designed to sail in Cornish waters. It is clinker built, very heavy and not at all pretty when compared with today’s dinghies. Well the one at the show was built last year and was the first to be built for many years. It took the guy who built it over a year to do so, and it is for sale at the mouth watering price of £20000. I don’t think that there is any way this boat will ever fetch that amount of money. He started from scratch, made all the ribs and then planked it up, using over 1000 copper rivets to hold it all together. A real labour of love, but just not commercial anymore. The Hartley stand had newer versions of the Kestrel, Osprey and Wayfarer on it stand plus the new redesigned decked Supernova. Personally I don’t think the lines look so good now, but it is supposed to make the boat more modern and easier to right after a capsize. The Supernova also boasts a new mylar mainsail, which again is supposed to make the boat sail better. It all seems a bit unfortunate to anyone who bought a new Supernova last year as the new version really supersedes the previous version. The stand with the foiling moths on was quite fascinating. These little development boats are incredible to see. The amount of technology that has gone in to them with the controls for the foils, rudder and dagger board and the sails is staggering. They are quite expensive for what they are and constant changes and improvements mean you have to be a serious player to get involved. Quite a few of the traditional wooden hull classes have now introduced FRP versions, including the Enterprise, Mirror and Scorpion. In all cases the FRP models are much cheaper and in a lot of cases faster than their wooden counterparts but when shown alongside the wooden versions as they were at the show, looked hideous in comparison. Even the Merlin Rockets which nowadays are all Kevlar and FRP looked slightly at odds with the wooden decked version that was on display. However the latest version of the National 12 looked light years ahead of one of the original wooden planked versions that was built some 60 years previous. Both boats carry the same name but look nothing like each other. Another class that was promoting itself in wood and FRP was the GP14, which is a boat I have never liked the look of and even now consider it quite a plain looking, dumpy boat, though I know it has a keen following in the northern part of the country. A very old Firefly had been restored by replacing everything apart from the hull. Once again someone with a flair for carpentry had produced a superb looking example of boat building. The Firely is another class that is now also built in FRP, but to me this looks a nice transition. Yes there were lots to see and I am sure most Club members would have enjoyed it. I know Kay tried to get enough members to fill a mini bus, but didn’t get enough response, which was a shame. Maybe next year we should try organising something much earlier and include other local Clubs, to help get the numbers up to 30 plus or so to make it viable. Unfortunately it is a long way to go from down here and I was fortunate enough to include my trip with a family visit which helped break the journey up. Oh by the way, our sailing season starts this month. Will you be ready?

February 21st The previous night’s frost had all disappeared by this morning and it was reasonably mild for a February morning. There was a light southerly blowing and again the thoughts of sailing were upper most in everyone’s minds. Just the right conditions for a shake down sail. Ken has been preparing a dinghy park plan, which will hopefully prevent overcrowding in the dinghy park, which in turn may help boats from being damaged when too many are packed in side by side. Apparently spaces are being allocated on an attendance related basis, which more or less includes everybody who regularly sailed last season, though we do have to accommodate the 2 new Picos and the Bug that have been purchased. I expect that when completed the plan will be displayed in the Clubhouse so everyone can see where they are supposed to be. I decided that I would have a go at splicing. Earlier in the week I bought some 3 ply rope, to splice onto our shorter beach mark. Well that sounded fine in principle but when I got down to it found that it was far more complicated than it looks. Yes the theory is fine as all you have to do is follow on one ply over the next etc. Well it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. Fortunately Steve Wingrove was at hand and ex Boy Scout leader, so knew a bit about splicing. Between the 2 of us we managed to splice the 2 ropes together and then put a soft eye on the free end of the new rope. Well the result doesn’t look very pretty but I have no doubt that it will be strong enough and will not separate, plus will have the bonus of being under water so no one will know what it really looks like. Apart from my foraging into the world of splicing there was still plenty of other work going on. Stacey turned up with a trailer full of bags of aggregate, cement and a mixer, to prepare for the big mix next weekend to finish off the base for the new water tank for boat washing. The picture above shows Allan Orton with the Tasar he bought last year. Allan is giving it a complete revamp and it has been taken away to be sprayed and will reappear with a hull colour of battleship grey. I’m going to be away for the next 2 weekends for family visits, so there won’t be any updates on the blog.

February 14th The funeral was held on Friday of Dennis Stone. The funeral service was at Carclaze Methodist Chapel and the Chapel was packed out, The Club was well represented from the Membership and Dennis's love of sailing was mentioned in his eulogy. Dennis had sailed with Russel Moore for over 20 years and had forged a very good partnership between them. Dennis also belonged to St. Blazey amateur dramatic society, so the congregation was swollen with quite a few of its Members as well as ex work colleagues. For a change it was quite mild down at the Club today & by lunch time the sun had broken through and we were treated to a very early spring day. The bay looked very peaceful, completely windless at first, before a very light offshore breeze sprung up. The thoughts of going sailing again were foremost in our minds. Maintenance is slowly making progress and hopefully we will be ready for the first day of sailing which is now only 6 weeks away. Before that we have the Club walk which was originally scheduled for March 14th. However that day is actually Mothering Sunday, so the walk has been put back a week to the 21st. I believe the walk will be centred on Leryn, but Kay will be emailing everyone before then with the rendezvous time and place. Towards the end of last season it was quite noticeable that the beach marks appeared to be moving around and we had to keep repositioning them. Each mark is held down with a weight, which usually buries into the sand. As a precaution we have for the last 2 seasons connected a bridal between the 2 sets of tackle so that if one beach mark was to lose its anchoring point then the bridal should stop us from losing all the tackle. When the beach marks were finally lifted at the end of the season we found that one of the anchor weights had parted company with its tackle. The mark drifted about because it was still secured by the bridal, but at least we still have it and all we need now is another weight before we set them out at sea again. Tony Dunn and Janet were cleaning the glass screens on the decking this morning when Jenny March came out with a very good tip. When cleaning glass, ie windows, clean one side in a vertical motion and the other side in a horizontal motion, that way you can easily tell which side may still have cleaner on it as you polish it off.

February 7th It’s winter and it is slowly passing. However the mornings and evenings are starting to noticeably pull out and spring isn't too far away now. In fact yesterday was quite warm and gave us a hint of what should be coming, but today down at the Club it was a winter’s day once again, with a cold south easterly blowing. Yes today was a far cry from 2 weeks ago when the Scorpion launching took place. That was a day of bright sunshine and unseasonably warm weather and I don’t think they would have been quite as happy launching into today’s surf driven south easterly. It wasn’t a very strong wind today but it was a very cold wind. However, we were back to the more mundane job of Club maintenance. I was away last weekend so wasn’t available to lend a hand, but today managed to get quite wet helping Tony with his pressure washer on the decking and entrance steps. Elsewhere the post box was being painted, the external notice board was discussed and plans made to renovate it. Work started on cleaning the changing room duck boards. Quite a few screws are needed to bring them back to good health. No1 safety boat had it’s engine oil drained out ready for replacement, the race box was cleaned out, and the windows and clubhouse floor were cleaned. All in all quite a bit of work done but we still need more volunteers. The picture today shows the area behind the Clubhouse where the water collection tank will be sited. Rain water from the roof will be collected in the tank and then used for washing the boats after sailing. Hopefully this will help reducing the running costs of the Club as we are on a water meter; therefore any cut in our water usage will make economic sense. There is still quite a bit of work to be done yet as the concrete has to be poured to provide a base for the water tank. This will involve a load of ready mix and a good stream of volunteers with wheel barrows to get the base finished, then the tank can be positioned. The plumbing and pump will then be fitted, hopefully it will be all up and running before the sailing season starts. The next social, only 2 weeks away will be the fish and chip supper, which is always well attended, so no doubt Kay will be in touch with you all within the next few days to take your orders. Many of you are aware that Dennis Stone died earlier in the week. Dennis had sailed with Russell Moore for many years. They started sailing together at Fowey when Russell sailed Wayfarers but transferred to Porthpean maybe 10 years ago when Russell decided to get a Tasar. They sailed together practically every week until Dennis had to give up due to illness.

January 27th This month is proving to be one of the busiest Januarys ever. So far we have had the Dinner & Prizegiving for the 2009 season, which was a very successful and well supported evening. Last weekend saw the Scorpion 50th anniversary with a full Clubhouse on Saturday evening with many Scorpion sailors from the past and present attending, coupled with the launching and racing on Sunday of our own Scorpions. Today saw the delivery of the New Laser Bug & 2 Laser Picos that the Club has bought in conjunction with the grant that we have received. Also on the delivery lorry was a new Laser for Nick Haskins. Nick has owned and sailed Lasers for almost all his sailing life. Nick joined the Club in 1974, so has owned quite a few over the years. However he did change to a Supernova a few years ago, but has decided that his heart really belongs to the Laser (& Liz of course), so a certain Supernova in red is on the market.

The pictures today show the boats being offloaded and Nick examining his new Laser, sail number 197479, before wrapping it up until some warmer weather arrives. I did suggest that we could take it for a sail tomorrow, but he politely declined the offer. The new Picos and Bug require all their ropes and sheets, threading in all the right places, but this has been left for the moment for the Cadets to do to get themselves familiar with the boats. I’m not sure when they will be launched, maybe we should have an official launch party for this. The Capsize Club will be up and running again sometime in April, so these new boats will be getting a lot of use. There were also some extra Picos and a dart 16 on the lorry to be delivered to Pentewan, plus lots of sailing clothing for Anna & Liz’s sailing school, which should be up and running in the spring. The count down clock is ticking and we are now have less than 60 days to go, with quite a few socials to come, plus maintenance of the Club premises to complete.

January 10th Here we go, looking forward to the 2010 sailing season, but before the sailing season starts there are quite a few weeks of winter to get through, with Club maintainance taking place every Sunday morning from 10.00am. There are also two important social events to look forward to this month. The first, only next Saturday will be the annual dinner and prizegiving at the Bosun’s Diner in Charlestown. Hopefully this event will not be impacted by the harsh winter weather we have had so far this month, but the forecasted thaw is still some way off, so let’s keep our fingers crossed. The resaraunt will be open at 6.45 and we will sit down to eat at 7.30 prompt. Don't forget ladies I want to take a group photograph of all ladies who sailed at the Club in 2009. The best time to take the picture will be right after the prizegiving / raffle, before we start the dancing. The second event is only a week later, when we celebrate the launching 50 years ago of the prototype Scorpion at Porthpean. There will be a party in the Clubhouse on Saturday 23rd where we are hoping that many Scorpion sailors from years gone by will come down to the Club to reminisceabout their sailing days etc and then on Sunday 24th our own 3 Scorpions will be launched to commemorate the actual launching of the prototype 50 years ago. In late 1959 the Club was looking to adopt a modern fast dinghy and the word on the street was that the Scorpion still being designed, would fit the bill. This is the boat that brought Porthpean into the modern dinghy days. Before the Scorpion arrived, the Club sailed a mixture of clinker built wooden boats, which were not in themselves very fast and a capsize was a disaster, as it was impossible to be able to right a boat and sail back into a competitive position. It was arranged with the designer to bring the prototype, ready to sail Scorpion, to Porthpean so that a test sail could be undertaken.The test proved successful and so started a new era for the Club, with the Scorpion dinghy taking a prominent role and for many years was the mainstay of Club life at Porthpean, with a fleet of over 20 at one time, before being usurped by firstly the Laser in the 70s and then the Tasar in the 80s. Snow has been the main topic on the news over the last week, with very heavy falls throughout the country and some even in Cornwall, though I think we have got off a lot lighter than many. Even at Porthpean there was a covering and I am sure in the summer we will look back at photographs like the one here and laugh about it. Today was the first Sunday of the work parties and the weather forecast obviously put most people off from coming down as there were only a few of us and what work we did was concentrated in the Club house.

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