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Please Note. The comments and pictures on this blog are solely my own personal views & are not necessarily the views of Porthpean Sailing Club.

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February 19th At last the moment we’ve been waiting for…………..Sunshine. After quite a few weeks of being confined to the Clubhouse for maintenance work, a rise in temperature, well 7C is hardly balmy but out on the decking and in the lee of the Clubhouse plus the appearance of the sun certainly made it seem more Spring like and thus there a mass exodus this morning to start on some of the outside maintenance jobs. More importantly there was a very good attendance which was certainly put to good use as quite a few tasks were started. Richard & I started painting the exterior walls, so eager were we to start that we neglected to first clean the gutters and facia boards, so had to wait for the paint to dry before we could tackle that. Pete Barnes, Ken & Nick were busy trimming the bushes on the back hedge, Harry & Chris were in the Ladies changing rooms, painting, whilst Tony, Andrew & James were clearing the 2 extreme corners of the yard of an enormous amount of rubbish which had accumulated over the last 12 months.

Colin & Nigel were measuring and discussing the fitting of a new, remote controlled horn, to go alongside the flagpole. Beacky was looking at the beach marks ground tackle and Stewart, complete with hammer drill started digging up the concrete path in the dinghy park where it is breaking away. Beacky told us that the path was laid in 1972, so it has seen a lot of boats and feet traversing it over the years, but unfortunately the original concrete wasn’t laid thick enough and has gradually been deteriorating over the years, and is now in need of a complete repair. There are still lots of little jobs to do; the concrete that Stewart is digging up will need to be taken to the dump and we will have to organise hard core, sand, cement and a cement mixer to finish the job. I don’t think the Treasurer will be too pleased. In all honesty the complete pathway requires replacing but I think just the urgent work will be done this side of the sailing season, with the rest to be planned in for next winter.

Many of us cast a speculative eye out at the bay which looked very inviting, with a flat sea, graced by quite a light to moderate offshore breeze. It looked absolutely perfect for a sail, but unfortunately we will still have to wait officially for another 5 weeks before the fleet launch in earnest again. We had a very successful rules evening a few Wednesdays ago, that was well attended, and everyone was given a printout of the Rules by Jeremy and a very interesting discussion then ensued as to how they were interpreted on the race course. Some of the more observant of you may have noticed that I have put a link to a rules test on the front page of the Web. The link that I am using is the old one but this time to another and better site that I have found, so if you feel like pitting your wits against it then please have a go. I found that I was doing better against the difficult ones than the easy ones.

I believe that this Wednesday there will be a discussion on the duties of OOD by Gary Lewis and how to carry them out. Again it is scheduled for 7.30 and should be good help and a good refresher for those who only get to be detailed as OOD a couple of times a year. It will involve how the timing sequence goes, what information should be transmitted between Club house and Safety Boat. How times are recorded and what is done with them afterwards. We actually use a computer programme called “Sailwave” to crunch all the numbers. Access to it is limited to a few members, but that shouldn’t put anyone off from learning about how it works and how the data is entered. Saturday the 25th sees a 60th Birthday Party for Pete Barnes and all Club members are invited to come along. I am told that there will be music and a light buffet form 7.30 onwards.

Just as a little light relief, many of you will know that we have had our Grand Daughters down with us this week. The youngest, Katie was in bed with us last Sunday morning and I asked her “How old are you Katie?” “5”, she replied. “Well actually you are 5 ½”, I said; her birthday is in August. “No Grand Dad, 5 ½ is my shoe size”. She told me in quite a knowing way. It just goes to show that even from a young age women always know best! The website saw a new milestone during the last week when the hits counter turned 100,000. I have been watching it slowly creeping up and wondering exactly when it would reach that milestone. I guess it will take almost another 10 years before the 200,000 clocks up, but at least I know the site is well used, even in the winter months.

February 12th What a contrast today was from only a few hours earlier at the fish & chip supper, which was another well attended social. Last night produced a heavy frost, yet by this morning the temperature was positively balmy. It would have been possible to sit outside on the decking and just enjoy the view, but unfortunately there were still lots of work to do. BUT things are starting to take shape. All the tables that needed new end stops on the legs were fitted with their new protectors, (see the picture alongside), courtesy of Nick Haskins, who had been busy during the week turning the end stops down on his lathe. The skirting boards around the Club house were refitted, Ken was busy on his hands and knees busy scrubbing the vinyl flooring to removing the rust stains from the previous contact with the table legs that hadn’t been fitted with end stops. Stewart, Chris Hazell & Brian Phillips were busy in the changing rooms, cleaning and painting. Nigel & Colin were looking at the logistics of putting up a new housing for the horn. The re painted flag pole has been put back in place. The interior walls of the Clubhouse have been repainted, mainly by Harry Fryer, and the outside is still waiting for an improvement in the weather before painting begins there. We did lose one set of tackle from one of the beach marks at the end of last season so another needs to be made up, though we do have the buoy which very fortunately made its way back to the beach when the tackle broke away.

January 31st The annual Club Walk, dented the work party number this Sunday somewhat. However we are making good progress with the new flooring. Anybody who has been down to the Wednesday socials will see just a bare board sailing Club. Tony has met with one or two companies to give us a quote for new flooring and I believe an order has been placed and the new floor will be laid before the F&C supper which is only 2 weeks away now. The picture alongside shows a few new floorboards going down, as some of the original ones had been badly damaged by water ingress over earlier years. The Club house is also going to benefit from a new coat of paint so the whole place will look in pristine condition for the start of the season which is only about 50 days away. The walk, this year had a lower attendance than previous years, mainly I think due to the poor weather forecast. I know of at least one member who has just acquired a new bike from Halfords, which is an all singing and dancing terrain bike, with super telescopic suspension and enough gears to climb Everest, didn’t make his expected appearance, as he didn’t want to get his bike wet!! What a let down, our bikes were so muddy when we got home that I had to hose them down, dry them off and oil all the bare metal bits. We too don’t usually go out in the rain, but Sunday was an exception, though we probably wouldn’t have gone if it was raining before we started. So far this winter we have had mainly mild weather, and the bay has looked very endearing sometimes when we have been down with an offshore wind blowing, but unfortunately the beasterly easterly winds have arrived and with it a plummeting of the temperature. Suddenly the thoughts of sailing have gone on the back burner, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to conjure up those thoughts of some balmy summer days when we will be moaning of the lack of wind as we sit around on the shore waiting for some of those summer breezes to fill in on a flat sea. Sometimes I think, our Club isn’t used enough and I have thought that it would be a good idea to introduce a social side to the sailing, especially for those amongst us who are retired. In fact when you look at the demographics, there are quite a few regular sailors who are retired or not working and I think it would be good to have an afternoon a week set aside for casual sailing. Now I’m not sure what would be the best day, a Wednesday could be good as the evening racing would then follow on, so it saves putting the boats away twice or maybe a Friday afternoon, as we might be joined by some “workers” who sometimes finish early on a weekend. I was only thinking of sailing in conditions where we wouldn’t need a safety boat as we don’t want to incur costs. So far it is just an idea but I would be pleased to hear if there is any interest form other “retirees”. John Hill is one of those in the retiree category and at the moment he and Linda are enjoying a cruise in the Far East. He sent me an email this week describing their progress, which I am sure he won’t mind me publishing here, so the next paragraph is John’s account of their trip. “Just arrived in Ambon (in the Spice Islands/ Moluccas), Indonesia. All going well. Crossed the equator yesterday. King Neptune had half the crew thrown in the pool. Weather hot and humid but have dodged cyclones so far. Lots to do on the boat on the days at sea, with excellent lectures and workshops, even the evening shows are pretty good considering how small the MV Discovery is. Its very old as cruise ships go, bit rusty, but many people have been on previous cruises, some back to back, so they are a well travelled bunch. The boat has been every where (almost).It reaches the parts other ships don't reach. It’s not full, only about 500. Darwin next stop. Lots of amazing outrigger dugout canoes." Well that seems much more interesting than battling through our winter, even if it is unusually milder than most winters. I am sure John & Linda will have lots to tell when we see them next.

January 15th Week 2 of the maintenance parties and we were greeted by a very cold strong wind blowing off the sea. Yes the surf was pounding in on the beach and there was no way anyone could launch a boat let alone sail in those conditions. In fact it was with great relief that we had quite a big job indoors to get on with. For some time now we have had to put up with the deteriorating state of the floor tiles on the top level of the Clubhouse. I suspect that the flooring has suffered due to the use of an industrial type polisher that has damaged the edges of many of the tiles which in turn have let in water and sand. Anyway the time has come to do something about it, but first we had to rip off the old tiles. Well about 8 of us took it in turns to use a series of hammers, wrecking bars and spades to lift off the old tiles which had been laid on a bed of thin plywood, which in turn covered the original tongue and groove floorboards. By the end of the morning we had a pile of old tiles and plywood, waiting to be taken to the dump.

We now have a choice of what to do with the flooring that is left. We could sand down the floorboards and then varnish / seal them but there is some damage to repair first and it will make quite a mess with all the dust that it might generate. We could put down some more plywood to create a smooth surface as before and then cover that with either tiles or a one piece vinyl floor covering. Either way there will be a cost, but although I think the old floorboards might look nice if they are revitalised I think that the Clubhouse would look more modern if it was re tiled. I daresay that quite a few different views will be voiced before a decision is taken, but at least we have almost finished the worst job. Meanwhile whilst we were inside with our project, Andrew, complete with chain saw was giving some attention to some errant trees in the dinghy park. I think we have enough wood piled up now to have a very nice bonfire.

Keys? Ever lost your keys? Well I know that Nick lost his a few weeks ago and ended up finding that it was cheaper to buy a new car than a new set of keys. Well that happened to me last week on Thursday afternoon. Our mild winter gave us quite a nice sunny couple of days last week so I thought that I would go for a bike ride down the Pentewan trail. My bike is in the garage, locked up to Sue’s bike, so before I could go anywhere I had to undo the lock. I went to get the key from the drawer where it is kept only to discover that the key wasn't there. Well I searched high and low but couldn’t find the key. Sue also had a good look when she came home but to no avail. This now meant that I would have to cut the lock off if I needed my bike. Well as it is still winter I thought that the chances of me needing the bike in the next few weeks is fairly slim so decided not to go mad and cut the lock off just yet. It's made of hardened steel and would be difficult to cut, plus I knew very well that if I cut the lock off then I would almost immediately find the missing key. This morning I had a eureka moment, when as strange as it might seem I temporarily lost my car keys also. This old timers disease is getting bad, I’m not looking forward to old age!! Normally the car keys are hung up when I come in but this morning I had done something else before coming in and had put my keys in my coat pocket. The eureka moment was wondering if I had done the same when I last used my bike. I cast my mind back to last December when I last used the bike. Did I wear a coat? No, but I did wear an old splash top anorak that I keep in the car, so I went to check it and sure enough there was the missing bike key, nestling in one of the pockets. Well what a huge relief that was as now I can unlock the bikes when I want and more importantly I don’t need to cut the lock off. Oh yes the key is now back in the drawer.

January 7th The more observant of you will have noticed that there have been no blog entries since we finished sailing at the end of November. Well the reason for that is that our sailing season has finished, but believe it or not I have been asked to try and continue it over the winter. In that case take this as my first entry for 2012 and I will try and keep them going until our new sailing season starts in March. I took my Tasar home the week after the sailing season ended to start some much needed work on the boat. Actually she doesn’t need too much doing but my dagger board packing has been loose for quite a while so I wanted to strip it out and re fit it before the cold weather came. Well it is all done and now I do have sufficient time for the glue to cure properly. The other job that I am thinking of undertaking is to fit the new type stay slider controls to the boat. I have noticed that the faster boats nowadays tend to sail with quite a lot of tension on up wind and the new type roller blocks certainly make it a lot easier to operate than the standard system. Fortunately I still have several weeks to get all the materials together and fit them all on. I think the only person who has sailed since we finished our season is Jeremy. He went down to Restronguet for their Christmas pudding race. 54 boats in all competed and Jeremy & Suzanne made 2nd place, beaten only by a B14. The course was a windward leeward one, which isn’t always the best for a Tasar, so given that they did remarkably well.

Just recapping a little on last season, we had the 2011 AGM 2 weeks after sailing and it was one of the best attended AGMs for many a year. For the first time ever we actually had a vote for a new Commodore. Chris Hazel, elected last year, was quite happy to serve at least another year, but Paddy Seyler wanted to have a tilt at the post himself. Paddy had been duly proposed and seconded and was elected after a vote. There were a few other changes on the Committee and the full list of faces and jobs can be seen on the Committee page of the web site. Now for the sailing as seen by me and please note these are solely my own thoughts. To me the 2011 season was quite a breezy one and not to my personal taste as I found that I was struggling many times to keep upright, though I think that I only had 2 capsizes whilst racing all season, and one of those was due to the mainsheet becoming uncleated. The 2nd time we capsized was the result of being blown in by a huge gust. We were blown in just after the start of an afternoon race, when an exceptionally strong gust, beat my reactions and in we went. This was the time that I realised that my buoyancy aid rode up far too high which in turn gave me too many difficulties when I tried to right the boat. I have modified the buoyancy aid now and I am hopeful that if there is a next time then events will be easier to manage, though I don’t intend practicing capsizing too much in the future.

Despite the stronger winds this year we still managed to complete most of the races, especially at the start of the season. The weather in the spring was exceptional in that it was so mild and sunny and lead us into a somewhat false security, making many of us believe that we were about to get a summer of good weather. However, once again summer turned out to be a big disappointment, with July & August proving to be wet and windy. The Tuesday night training nights proved very successful, with sometimes more than 15 boats out sailing. The Club Picos were well used both for training and also racing, though the Bug has been hardly out at all. Our first open event of the year was the Tasar Open. Now for the last 3 years we have been blessed with fine weather and we almost succeeded again, the Saturday started off with a fine day and a good sailing breeze. Allan Orton, crewed by Paddy Seyler started off in great form, winning the first race in style. The 2 of them initially lead the 2nd race but were robbed when the breeze faded away to drifting conditions and they ended up in 6th place. The 2nd race was won by Steve & Polly. Unfortunately the weather deteriorated over night and we arrived on the Sunday to a very strong southerly wind which produced som fierce surf on the beach. Some of the more gung ho sailors launched but the Race Officer found that conditions out at sea were unsafe for racing and the meeting was abandoned, which gave the final result to Rob & Claire, visitors from Llangorse, who had taken 2 second places to secure their victory.

In early June, 3 of us from Porthpean undertook the long journey to Whitstable for the Tasar 3 day Nationals. The forecast was quite dire but when we left and arrived on the Thursday afternoon all looked quiet and Peaceful, but by the time we rigged on Friday morning, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and a very strong wind was blowing that in turn had whipped up a vicious looking sea. Quite a few launched and though we rigged I could see that some of the early launchers were coming back, some with broken masts. A capsize at Whitstable often results in a broken mast as the bay is fairly shallow, so I decided that I wouldn’t take a chance and wait for Saturday in the hopes that the weather would have moderated. Saturday dawned slightly better and we were all rigged ready to go but were held on the beach when a delay was caused when the tractor used for launching the rescue boats broke down and it took a while to repair it. By the time repairs were affected the wind had got up again and once more I chickened out of sailing. Jeremy & Suzanne had 2 good races on Friday and went out again to win 2 of the 3 races held, which put them into the overall lead. Sunday dawned with even stronger winds blowing and by 09.00 I already had the boat packed away to come home. It came as no surprise that the decision was made to abandon all racing for the day. That decision was gratefully received by Jeremy & Suzanne as it left them as National Champions, and we all got to start the long trek home early.

The big event for Porthpean in 2011 was hosting the B14 Nationals. 28 of them descended on Porthpean for 3 days of racing in which 10 races were completed. Race Officer Ron Barrett succeeded in getting all the scheduled racing completed in what were very difficult conditions at the time. Quite a few of the fleet capsized at different times. In fact I would say that almost the entire fleet had a capsize over the 3 days. The wind was in the 20 knots range for at least the first two days and the combination of wind, waves and tricky to sail, boats guaranteed plenty of capsizes. I was in a rescue boat so can vouch on the strength of the conditions. When they were upright they proved to be devastatingly fast and many of the sailors came ashore with huge grins, though also with tired bodies. The B14 fleet were very impressed with Porthpean and will be returning again in a few years time. The Tasar fleet has once again been the mainstay of the sailing in 2011 and has been highly competitive, so much so that Steve Mitchell resorted to buying one of the newer 2nd hand Bethwaite boats that seem so fast nowadays, mainly thanks to Jeremy & Suzanne. The Tasar fleet should be bigger again next season when we hope to see Justin back sailing again, plus Jeremy’s old boat has been sold to someone who is re joining the Club and Stewart Page tells me that he will come out of self imposed retirement, if his legs can stand it, and sail his 20 year old immaculate Tasar once again. Chris Bilkie could have a choice of crews this year, though Luke may be tempted top sail his Topper more as Fin has just joined the Topper fleet. I wonder if Nigel & James will be moving up a gear and buying a faster class boat as James is now in his mid teens. They would make another ideal Tasar crew between them, though maybe an RS200 might suit them better if they wish to retain a spinnaker type boat. Only 2 of our 4 Scorpions sailed regularly last year and I would like to hope that the other 2 will make more of an effort this year. Both Stacey & Alan have Contenders and Tasars and so sail both boats at different times. Stacey has spent quite a lot of the latter part of the 2011 season sailing with daughter Lucy and hopefully this combination will be seen regularly in 2012 as well.

Richard Armstrong came back to us again in 2011, taking up the challenge again in his Contender and I think he is really enjoying it, so he should hopefully be staying this year. John Hill manages to make his Supernova perform well and Nick Haskins still has one for sail if anyone is interested in getting a relatively fast single hander. Steve Wingrove has been in a transitionary year sailing a Blaze and has been joined by a very enthusiastic Roger Williams, who travels over from Rock and has converted his temporary membership to a full membership so expect him to be sailing regularly with us in 2012 . Roger used to sail at Burghfield, at what is probably the hot bed of Blaze sailing so really knows how to make the boat go. I hear murmurs that the interest may spread to one or two others who want a more challenging boat than say a Laser. There is also a possibility that another Blaze sailor may be moving into the area and he too would consider joining Porthpean also. Paddy took on a challenge last year when he bought an RS600. These are very fast boats and take a lot of taming, Paddy has had to undergo many duckings but is staying upright for longer periods of time nowadays, though I think he would rather sail a Tasar too for the greater competition. The dear old Scorpion used to be the bedrock of sailing at Porthpean in the 60’s, though we only have 4 now registered at Porthpean and although all 4 have put in an appearance this year only Beacky & Kelvin and the Kendalls have sailed with any degree of regularity. Maybe we can tempt the other 2 to become regular sailors again this year. Our Laser fleet just about limps on, we have quite a few registered at Porthpean but not many sailed regularly last year, the main 2 sailing being Dr Nick and Brian Reeves. Pete & Jan managed to sail their Kestrel quite a bit last year but were hampered somewhat with Pete’s work pattern, but I still expect to see them as often again this next season.

The Cadets, under the tutelage of Anna & Liz, are starting to thrive and maybe there will be enough of them this year to have their own series, with maybe a smaller course than ours as it can start to get very lonely when they are a long way out on their own, behind the rest of the fleet when we have larger courses. The big event for Porthpean this year will be the Tasar Nationals at the end of August. This 4 day event will be the 5th time that we have hosted the Tasar Nationals and in itself will pose quite a challenge, as many of our members will be sailing in it, so we will be looking for an even greater commitment from other members to be able to run it. We do have sufficient people and resources and if we get the sort of numbers participating as we have had in the past then it should be another good financial event for the Club. Sue & I went to Basingstoke over the weekend to visit our Son and family and I took the opportunity to visit Queen Mary SC on Saturday where they were hosting the Bloody Mary. There were over 300 dinghies entered, though no Tasars and no Mirror dinghies, but there must have been at least one or two of most other dinghies, and what an impressive sight it was. The most spectacular of them all were the foiling moths and they had a fleet of about 20 racing. The weather was nice and dry with a weak sun bathing the Club in a nice winter light but quite a cold force 4-5 blowing in off the water. The first boats to start at 12.00 were the Toppers, all 34 of them, to sail for 3 hours. The 20 or so foiling Moths started last and what a sight they were, impressing everyone there. Within 5 seconds of going afloat they were up on their foils and flying, not only flying above the water but travelling so very fast. They started 80 minutes after the Toppers, but in no time at all were screaming through the 200 plus fleet in front of them, travelling so fast that the experts took the first 4 places. The first “conventional” dinghy was a Fireball, and the first Topper to finish was back in 34th place. All in all it was a most impressive sight and very well organised as more than 90% of the boats entered were visitors, so parking and unloading posed quite a few logistical challenges.

Being away meant that I managed to miss the first of our maintenance Sundays. This year they are being managed by Tony Dunn and if the weather down at Porthpean was anything like in London then I am sure should have been well attended. There are jobs that anyone is capable of doing from cleaning, painting to repairing. The countdown clock on the front page showed 77 days last Sunday. 11 weeks, before the sailing season starts again, so we must pull together and get all the jobs out of the way by then, a target that is achievable. I am hoping to get this uploaded today so it will also coincide with the first meeting of the new Committee under the stewardship of Paddy Seyler. Next Saturday we will be hosting the 2011 Dinner Dance at the Bosun’s Diner in Charlestown, where once again both Men and the Ladies will be dressed up in their finery. Anna is our new Social Secretary and I look forward to seeing what delicacies she will be coming up with but I am sure that the old favourite, Fish & Chip Supper Night will be among them. Hmm sounds quite tasty already. Well not too long to wait, see you all soon.

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