Archive for October 2015

Again the weather gods relented and provided an excellent day for a race.  The expected wind conditions were not as predicted by the various sources and exceeded the quoted 6 to 14 knots to reach 20 knots for much of the afternoon.

Again a good sized fleet set out on course 57 (57A for the white fleet) with 12 yachts on the water.

Speed

In Blue, Irukandji was powerful and made a break on the remainder of the fleet and Sweet Chariot finally overcame Eggshells and Blue Chip to make it back next. GWhizz, Speedwell and StarElan kept in contact with Speedwell recording a good handicap result.

In White, at last a healthy sized fleet emerged with the return of Paca, Highland Ghost and Mistress.  Paca and Umzimkulu II fought for the lead with Flair not far behind. As handicaps balance out with regular racing this will be a closely fought division.

Again a healthy group assembled on the ‘Deck of Knowledge’ to discuss a varied selection of topics, including the advantages of owning an Etchells, the upcoming rules night and why there was a vehicular ferry at Balls Head.

Thanks to Harvey for manning the start, apparently no one had their radios on and missed several of his jokes.

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A Twilight sized fleet gathered to contest DH race 2 and this was very gratifying. The weather held and in a lightening breeze the Blue fleet made it back from Nielsen Park, White from Shark and the Red(s) from the Fort.

The ‘big’ boats – Clovelly Pacific, Sweet Chariot, Flashback, Lisdillon and GWhizz, made the Blue Division a daunting site as they entered Humbug.  With 14 boats in the blue fleet for the race it was an excellent turn-out.

Photograph courtesy Andrew Richardson – click here for more photographs from Andrew for DH Race 2

 

White division also looked healthy with 5 contestants – Tana, Out of Africa, New Territories, Joka and Umzimkulu II.

Sadly the Red fleet was depleted.  However, there seems to be building interest and the fleet size looks like increasing in the very near future.  There is still room for boats from the Red and Green twilight fleets to join and enjoy a day on the water on a Saturday.

The return to west of Bridge coincided with the departure of the fuel carrier Elka Delphi.  The red fleet, observing the procedures outlined at the Skippers’ briefing, slipped by along the Snails Bay ‘shore’ as the vessel was manoeuvred out from its berth in Gore Cove.  I’m sure the rest of the GFS fleet also observed the correct procedure.

Next Saturday Race is Spring Race 5 – October 24.

For Twilight Spring Race 2 our new caterer ML is providing 5 vegetarian and 5 ready made meals. If you wish to order the vegetarian meals in future (week by week) you should email a request to the caterers. To achieve that, hover your mouse pointer over the YACHT tab on our website and sub-tabs will appear namely Results and Twilights : by clicking on the Twilights  will be able to access the caterer’s email address and also be able to check the Twilight Duty Roster.

The October issue of our magazine HUMBUG has been posted – access it via the Humbug Tab

An excellent day for a sailing race with an ENE breeze ranging from about 7 to 15 kts.  Course 18 gave the navigators a bit of a challenge with Blue Division rounding both Goat Island and Goat Buoy on different legs of the course and Green/White only Goat Buoy.

It was good to see a healthy fleet in Blue Division and we welcome the return of Phil and Steven Lucas in Solitude and Colin Wiley and crew in Naughty Call for their first appearance in Saturday Series races with the club.  Also the re-crewed Irukandji with Paul Stubbs and Steve Nash in control was a welcome addition.

It is sad that the number of boats in Green/White Division has declined as it would be a perfect opportunity for Twilight Green and Red Division boats to sail on the weekend.  Handicaps would accommodate non-spinnaker sailing and the shorter course means a shorter afternoon. Please consider.

Next Saturday race is Down Harbour Race 2 (October 17).

In case you would like to review some of the matters covered in the recent Skippers’ Briefing please follow the link below.  It may be worthwhile for crew to view, especially regarding keeping an eye out for commercial shipping particularly ferries and reviewing the racing rules.

GFS Skippers Briefing 2015_2016 Season

 GFS SailPass
 GFS SailPass

Crew List
Entry
- here

GFS Facebook Group