Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club Website: P.O
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Newsletter Items, Idle Gossip, etc to [email protected] (deadline midnight Monday) Commodore Phill Robbins 0466668541 Club Newsletter Vice Commodore Jonathan Horsley 29/5/19 0412798505 Rear Commodore Before Chris Hallett 0414866998 Secretary Nola Hallett 0414866999 Treasurer Norm Hunt 66291366 Class Reps Gennakers – Duncan Dey Catamarans – Col Woodbry Trailers – Ian Michie Monos – Graham Hams Rowing Officer Gerald Anderson Website Admin Mark Pierce Instagram/Facebook Admin Trent Morgan Training team After Graeme Turner ALL EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE TO: [email protected] CONTENTS 2. Presentation Dinner 3. Gennaker report 9. Catamaran report 24. Monohull report 35. Trailer Sailor report 42. Winter racing 42. Interview 49. Bird’s eye footage 49. Mr Wiley’s Winter Training Programme 50. Club weather station 51. Race Q’s 52. Use of Club tractor 52. Club shirts 53. Idle gossip 55. Upcoming away events 56. Crew available/crew wanted 56. For sale/wanted/free Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Thursday 20th June, 6.30pm at Ballina Golf Club (Asian Green Restaurant) Jameson Avenue, East Ballina Come share this fun night with your family & friends $30 per head $15 children Trophies, Prizes, Quirky prizes + Lucky door prize Please make payment asap into RRSRC account and indicate your name and number attending Summerland Credit Union BSB: 728728 ACC: 22288328 RSVP to Nola Hallett 0414 8669999 or [email protected] by Friday 6th June 2019 ** Please specify any dietary requirement when booking ** 2 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Race Reports for May 26th Gennaker Report (Duncan Dey) 3 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 A gorgeous way to end the season, with some Melbourne weather (shifty) and a change of course format: Gennakers did laps past the box office, like the other fleets. Yay, no lap counting. Two laps were sailed. Two F15's and two RS100's had an incident free start down near Shaws Bay and sought the windward buoy near the Ramada with slight tidal assistance in a light westerly. Vince in 5 Buckaroos on the way to the start Barry & Ewan shot to the lead in F15 and would have won hands down but the breeze died as we tacked downwind, around the wing mark and back to Shaws Bay. They did their second crossing of the finish line almost an hour into the race. 4 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Business as usual for most of the race for Trade Secret Dan & Pip in F15 tussled with Duncan in RS100 for second place on the first lap of fading wind. Not often one gets to see the crew of an F15 being so relaxed with a spinnaker up 5 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Duncan in the fading light before the squall Vince hung back in RS100 but not by far. On the run, he collected the rising westerly wind first and closed the gap on Duncan. The second work included five minutes of rain with a squall to about 15 knots. The fleet took off and sped away from Duncan. Barry was still not out of sight however when the breeze failed again. Thankfully someone restrained Ric from abandoning the race and Roland from pulling up the buoys. We got round the windward buoy and drifted east - the tide had eased. The breeze finally returned and that was it. The F15's didn't create the gap they need so finishing order after yardstick was Duncan, Vince, Barry, Dan. 6 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 The approaching squall 7 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Duncan on the final stretch. It was a beautiful time of day to sail. 8 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Catamaran Report (Jonathan Horsley) 9 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 A fleet of six cats faced the starter with the minor placings in both the Championship and Handicap to be decided by result of this race. At the start a light westerly breeze of 5 knots with gusts to 10 knots had the fleet jostling for position at the boat end. was first across the line after a quick run along the line. The cats start The contenders for the minor positions started close together, , and . 10 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 The first leg was a work with and “ ” setting the early pace, closely followed by and . Tony in first Strike started well and was doing well before running into light wind near the Northern shore further up course 11 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Wokat moving nicely before the wind got light The contenders for second place in the championship keeping a close eye on each other 12 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 Ozpray and ‘A’ heading up the Southern side of the river Many different courses were sailed up the first leg with trying to ride waves (very small) into the beach and then hug the shore line. The four larger boats were very close passing through the gate the first time. As the breeze eased on the leg to the top buoy the favoured course was middle of the river away from the northern shore. Both and “ ” lost ground by getting to close to the shore. The light breeze at the top buoy required boats to sail with the crew weight well forward. This is even included being in front of the main beam. 13 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 By staying out in the middle rounded the top buoy in front closely followed by “ ” and . 14 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 The leg to the offset mark was a broad reach in light breeze and the top three positions remained the same, although was sailing very well and getting up with the larger cats. started to fall back. The downwind leg back to the bottom mark was a constant battle to find the light and an inconsistent westerly breeze. Michael in ‘A’ hoping for more wind 15 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 The wind strengthened slightly for the next work allowing for some interesting crew positions. This better breeze held all the way to the top buoy for the 3 leading cats. With well ahead of followed by “ ”. On the leg to the bottom mark the wind started to strengthen as a squall came in from the west. Making for some interesting sailing and plenty of spray, a full wetsuit might have been a better clothing choice. The rain gave the sails nice rinse in preparation for the winter layoff. 16 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 The squall (with gusts of 22 knots recorded on the club’s weather station) advantaged and “ ” who gained significant time on on the leg, rounding the bottom buoy only 2 minutes behind. The following cats, , and had a harder time of the squall as they were still working towards the top buoy and passed through the squall quicker as it moved east. Ozpray about to make a lot more spray 17 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 The last leg back to finish started with plenty of wind but this slowly eased off with just coasting across the finish line before the wind vanished. Look at the smile on Jonathan’s face as that wind is dying! Once ’s secret weapon (an old wooden paddle, which is only carried when wind is required on a light day) was taken off its fixing on the cat, the wind died. With a short paddle back to the beach to watch the rest of the fleet drift. 18 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 was the worst affected by the dying breeze and John decided to pull out of the race, but he had no paddle and had to swim his boat home. John having had enough 19 Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club website: www.rrsrc.com.au P.O. Box 963 Ballina 2478 The westerly wind had vanished as a NE seabreeze tried to get established. and “ ” were trying valiantly to sail with no wind to reach the finish line, at times the current was moving them away from the finish line. Col agonisingly short of the finish line - becalmed By the time the sea breeze managed to reach them, what had been only a 2-minute gap at the last buoy had blown out to over 17 minutes.