May 2018 A Message from the Editor “Ne'er cast a clout till May be out” is a traditional warning not to get too carried away when we get some good weather in May. A “clout” is a piece of clothing but it’s unclear whether “May” refers to the month or the tree. Anyway, I digress. May has started (sorry for the late Mainsheet) and we’re at the first Bank Holiday weekend and the weather is set fair for a few days. Let’s hope it sticks this time and doesn’t revert to February. We’ve had an excellent record of not abandoning Sunday sea racing with seven race-days held out of seven planned and we’ll add to that this weekend. We’re in the middle of the first Seaford Family Week- end. So gather the children or anything else that qualifies you to be a family (the dog, the au-pair, the Sly & The Family Stone or Sister Sledge LPs) and get to Seaford, pitch your tent and have fun. Details of the Familly Weekend can be found elsewhere in Mainsheet. My front page picture shows a duck swim- ming in the Seaford camp site on Wednesday, but fear not, it’s quite dry now, and the grass has been cut. Zoe McCaig (Commodore) and the new board are busy getting to grips with the transition to the new regime. Next month we’ll definitely have an article from Zoe in Mainsheet. Finally, let’s remember the success of Open Day. Throughout the year the club can put on amazing events and with everyone’s participation they linger in the memory. I’m off to cast all my clouts and trip down to Seaford. Richard Beal Mainsheet Editor, [email protected] 1 Open Day Well, wasn’t Open Day a triumph this year? The weather was kind to us but all the hard work paid-off and we had a most en- joyable and productive day. The statistics are impressive. The meet-and-greet area had visi- tors two or three deep at times, and were using every bit of technology they had to process enquiries. They were putting the Webcollect system (member management and course booking) through stress tests and had much useful feedback for Terry. Over £1500 was collected in new-member fees and we increased our numbers on the April RYA L1/L2 dinghy courses. Many families were keen to join if we could offer courses for the children. It’s estimated that about 150 members attended the event plus about 350 visitors. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves which was reflected in the takings at the Piddinghoe galley which did a roaring trade with a very healthy profit. Thanks are due to everyone who helped out. I think the members enjoyed the day as much as the visitors. Lots of pictures of the event are on the next few pages. 2 3 4 5 Cadet Launch Day—7th April As I drove towards the pond in the morning it was pouring heavily with rain, I had two gazebos in my car and was prepared to set up the day despite the elements being against us. However when I arrived at the pond the rain stopped and even though I wouldn’t call it sunny it defi- nitely dried up and allowed us to have a brilliant cadet launch day. The idea of the day was firstly to meet some of our new ca- dets before the chaos of Monday nights, (which this year will involve 80 cadets and 60 boats on the water). All our new cadets had a chance to have a taster sail with our more experienced cadets taking them on the water. I was really impressed with our current cadets who were enthusiastic, friendly and keen to share their joy of sailing throughout the day, all with- out me even having to ask them. Mid-morning I meet Aphaia one of our new cadets she had the biggest smile on her face, she had been out for two taster sails and enjoyed it so much she could barely wait for Monday cadets to start. We also wanted to use the launch day to raise some money towards cadet funds to help buy some new waterproof radios. We ran two events for this, a cadet cake competition and a ‘Sail to France’. The cadet cake competition was judged mid morning by our two expert judges Sarah and Mike. The standard of cakes en- tered was excellent who knew we had such talent- ed bakers and sailors in cadets. First prize went to Bea West for her very colourful rainbow cake, second prize to Roscoe Harris for his pirate teddy bear cake and third prize to Lo- ra Wheatcroft for her chocolate cake. 6 The ‘Sail to France’ ran throughout the day initially sailing around the pond in Feva’s but by the end of the day we had a whole armada of boats joining in to make it an impressive joint total equivalent distance sailed to France and back. A massive well done to all our cadets for their enthusiasm and commitment. Harvey Jenkins and To- by Holmes Ling did the most laps at 22 the equivalent of sailing 7 miles. Saskia was second, Ed Rollestone 3rd, Bea West and Rudi Simpson-Nayler joint 4th and Rosie Hyland 5th. In total 22 cadets joined in with the ‘Sail to France’ and I hear they have collected an impressive amount of sponsorship money too. The day was finished with a brilliant disco by our resident DJ Harvey and a bring and burn BBQ in the evening sun. As always the day was made a success due to the army of volunteers, a big merci beaucoup to Ian Johnson and friends for setting up the amazing sail to France, thank you Emily and Ashley Cooke for running the taster sails, Ashley Hyland and team for welcoming eve- ryone at registration, Sa- rah Quinn for organising the galley, Nick Blackburn for getting the site ready and running the BBQ, Si- mon Suter and Andy Ham- ilton for ensuring the kit was sorted and I could ba- sically fill this page with thank yous as you are all so amazing. We can now look forward to the season ahead of us. For our experienced ca- dets we have pre season Saturday training every Saturday afternoon in 7 April, 2-4pm. The first Monday session is 14th May (please note this is a week later than advertised as 7th is a bank holiday). Jo West 8 Ups And Downs Munar, Amanda Borradaile and Stephen Hamilton are frequent sailors on our waters. Amanda’s a stal- wart of Women On Water and is often crewing for Stephen in his Albacore. Stephen has been renovating Bill Giles old Solo and after over 300 hours of work he’s produced a fine vessel as can be seen in the pho- tos below, where Munar’s crewing for him Unfortunately, things haven’t gone so well for the Albacore. As you can see from the photo below, some- one has “borrowed” the wheels from their launch trolley at Piddinghoe. Vandals are unlikely to have committed such a precision act so they must have been taken for a purpose. That’s a shame. 9 Recorder’s Notes The Bosun’s Cup was held over the Easter weekend. The weather was ideal for the first two races held on Sunday with a gentle F2-3 NW breeze. In both races my Streaker came 1st, Jazz Turner & Bea Cameron sailing their 420 were 2nd and Ed Thorburn (Finn) 3rd. The following day, Easter Monday, was much breezi- er with a F5 SW and a large swell building. Due to the conditions only 4 boats ventured out and only one race was sailed. Beaching was quite tricky as some waves were almost 2m high but fortunately all 4 boats beached safely. The race was won by Rupert and Chris sailing their Fireball with Jazz Turner & Lucy McCaig 2nd sailing their 420 only 11 seconds behind the Fireball on corrected time, 3rd was Zoe McCaig sailing her Radial. The following weekend was the start of the Spring Se- ries. The wind was so light, the incinerator smoke was going straight up and we had some light rain. We nearly didn’t bother to sail but the cadets seemed keen to get the RS Fevas prepared so we thought we would give it ago. 4 boats went out, but no Fevas. The ca- dets eventually thought better of the light winds. The wind did get up to F1 so we managed to get a couple of races sailed. My Streaker won with Penelope Duncan (Radial) 2nd and Bill Wates 3rd (Laser) in the first race and in second race Bill was 2nd and Connie Sturt (Slipper) 3rd. On 15th April we held the 3rd and 4th races of the Spring Series. Conditions were very nice F2-3 SE. We had a good turnout of 17 boats. With light winds for the first race only Rupert Smith & Chris Turner sailing their Fireball and my Streaker managed 3 laps, most finished after 2 laps. On corrected time the Streaker won Rupert & Chris (Fireball) 2nd and Jazz & Lucy (420) 3rd. With a little more wind up to F3 for the second race we all managed 3 laps but the results were the same. Due to a light F2-3 breeze dropping to F2 the next weekend we had two races with fairly short courses. My Streaker and the Fireball were going well and as the wind seemed steady the RO let the Fireball, which was leading, carry on for a 3rd lap.