Sailing Secretary Report

The season started very well with good sailing and support for the first four Sundays. Then Easter Sunday was glorious but the sailing was terrible with very little fluky wind. Generally there was good sailing in May. Throughout the year there were generally more good and fewer poor sailing days than usual.

The weather was ideal for the Saturday Open Day and we had 20 visitors. The Sunday Open Day was extremely windy, SW force 4 to 5 gusting 6 to 7. The only member to sail was Robert Britton who was very entertaining in a Laser.

Both the late Spring and August bank holiday visits to Bewl were excellent; warm with SW force 3 to 4 wind that gave super sailing. Over the years we have generally been very lucky with the conditions at Bewl and they make us so welcome.

The Regatta on 9 and 10 July was a couple of weeks later than usual and the Saturday was combined with a SigneT Open Meeting; fortunately there was great sailing on Saturday with a West force 2-3 gust 4 wind for the Signet visitors. Sunday was poor with very little wind.

The last scheduled sailing, 13th November, was amazingly warm and fine with a steady force 2-3 East wind that gave a very good sail. The main problem was that the low sun dazzled and made it difficult to see when some boats crossed the finish line.

There wasn’t any sailing in the extended season in November. The 20th was very foggy with no wind. It looked excellent on the 27th but members were fully occupied with a working party. But there was sailing on 4 December when Bryan Clements and Frank Goodall had a good sail in a West force 1-2 wind; a bit patchy but not shifty and fluky. There was also good sailing on 11 December. The first time we have sailed in December for at least 10 and possibly 20 years.

Super sailing conditions continued with four boats having a good sail on New Years Day; since then there have only been two Sundays without good sailing.

There has generally been good support, although rather inconsistent. Often there were multiple short races at 2pm which was popular and helped us to achieve the highest total number of boats starting that we have ever had; 690 compared to 203 in 1993.

I thank all our duty officers for their reliable support; without them we couldn’t race. In particular I would like to thank Pat Irving for preparing a super BBQ lunch every Sunday; a vast improvement on the pies we used to cook in the microwave.

A printed report of each race entry, series results, summaries and other items are in the Race Result folder that is normally kept in the book case and they are on the website http://www.sailaquarius.org.uk/. The race entry reports are very compact and give virtually all the information, except intermediate lap times; therefore the original race entry sheets will not be retained.

Richard Cannon