Our Mid Winter Cup Regatta is only a few weeks away now so dont forget that sunday the 26th june there will be no juniors as both the saturday and sunday are taken up with Mid Winter Cup activities and club open racing is also not on for the sunday afternoon
8.30 am Sunday Juniors :
With beautiful blue skies and light winds we soon had a dozen young sailors signed on for the early class with boats rigged and ready and down on the beach ready to go. Ross was given the job of running the briefing as to be honest he is really good at it and interacts with everyone well . With the winds out of the n/w Guy set a nice reach from the bridge to the beach fairly close at first because we were worried about predicted strong winds but then of course the winds changed and slowed down and half the fleet started drifting south.so Charlie Ross and Jade launched the yellow boat and started towing and guiding people back . Harvey Reece and Tristan all took new sailors out and then brought the back in so that we could give them all steering lessons in the shallows so well done boys . Ross did his usual after session tacking school with some very interested young sailors watching on while he showed the behind the back tacking technique so all in all a good session
10.30 am Youth Training:
With a few people missing with covid again we only had a small group for this class with three Bics and 1 Laser signed on Tristan was going to join in but I think him doing instructing for the first time at 8.30 class tired him out so he came on sarah to learn more about instructing.
Conditions were still flukey and the current was getting stronger on the outgoing tide so sailing across the channel to the gybe marks was difficult , Reece being the youngest member of the group did have trouble finding the wind as it continually shifted as did harvey although he was doing better than reece even if he occassionally forgot to pop battens ? Ross was practicing roll tacks and gybes while Jade just basically sailed around the course making the difficult conditions look easy and trust me they werent!
1.30 pm Open Racing :
With the winds settling in from the N/W at around 6 to 15 knots and the current absolutely roaring out I decided to not run our usual westerly course and set a start down near runners on the crab island side and A mark at the port mark near ephriam and a B mark over near the green channel mark near the sandbank We ended up with eleven boats on course and despite charlies prediction that we would probably need the recall flag everyone played nice well except Peter who because the port tack start was preferable came accross on starboard and forced a lot of people to tack away but surprisingly no collisions .The course comprised a couple of windward leewards then two triangles and it soon turned into a two horse race withGreg and Nick battling for the lead until as greg put it he overlaid the a mark and didnt cover nick who slipped into the lead all the way to the end , I believe at the finish line there was only around five seconds between the boats so a good race guys.
In the Youths Jade just cruised the course while Ross was right up there in his 4.7 and again I think on handicap he finished second or third on handicap and yes it was freezing on the start boat !!
Upcoming :
25/26 Mid winter Cup registration now open
Manly Youth Week one week after mid winter
CU on the water
J Murphy