With the break for christmas now over, tis the time to remove some excess weight and what better way than to come along to the next event in the Burghfield Winter Series!
This coming Sunday(13th) sees races five and six in the series and this will be followed, strangely enough, by races seven and eight on Sunday 20th Jan. With the series running on two consective weekends there is currently plenty of space to leave your boats at the club for both weekends, so if you are planning on the Bloody Mary on the Saturday why not leave your boat packed up and drop it down to Burghfield on the sunday.....at least it'll be easier to launch!
Wind conditions are anyone's guess at present but Metcheck is saying there will be at least 12mph around the weekend period.
As before if you are considering coming drop me an e-mail so that I can get an idea of numbers
[mail]jcdesigns42@btinternet.com[/mail]
Seven 12's braved the conditions and took part in races 5 & 6 of the series today. The wind proved to be both strong and challenging, with both heavy gusts and, in typically 'Burghfield Southerly' style, shifty! With the wind varying in strength in the gusts by up to 15knots or so and in direction by anything up to 40degrees getting round the first course set, proved to be a real challenge. The seven boats attempted to make it to the startline but it was not a good day for young lightweight crews and so only four made it across the startline. Graham made a predicatbly good start to the race with Tim Laws experiencing the front end of Grahams Numinious for the first time. Second round the First mark were Jeremy and George in their foolish followed by Bim and Clare. It was not long before Mike Storey realised that his young crew would be far more comfortable on the shore in the conditions and so retired early on. As the race progressed Jeremy and George took a brief dip in the huge gusts but were soon back on Grahams tail showing surprisingly good speed and managing to close back up (how I don't know why, but we just managed it!) Bim was also showing good speed but the race finished in that order. Meanwhile those who did not make the race did a bit of crew swapping and took to the water to experience each others boats and some awesome reaching.
In the afternoon race, George and myself opted for a video camera over another bruising (having broken the lowers on the final reach in the morning) and instead followed Graham, Caroline (whose boat was sorted after a problem with the rig in the am), Mike and Bim. Carloine made an impressive start and by half way through the first lap was nearly a leg ahead of anyone else. But a gybe gone wrong later and somewhat frustatingly for her, all was lost as it took a while to reccover from and Graham, Mike and Bim sailed past. We took some interesting footage of the afternoons endeavours but with the conditions even heavier than the morning it was only Graham and Tim who managed to complete the course. Graham is hoping to get sections of the video linked up to the website in the not too distant future so watch out... there is some entertainment to be had, and it proved to be a great way to end the challenging day............
Sitting at the bar with the video playing and alot of armchair sailing going on!
Don't forget that next week is week 4 of the series and hopefully the wind will be slightly kinder on those who can make it down!
I forgot to add..... Graham and Tim borrowed a GPS in the afternoon and and manged a max speed (not average over any distance) of 15.4knots. So the challenge is now out there to see what speeds can be achieved in a twelve!
Jeremy,
sounds like a really good sail had by all. Are you going to put the footage on the web?
Cheers!
Jim. N3470 and 3130
Just one clarification - and point of honour! It was gear failure that did for us in the morning just after the start. Nothing like a winter blow to sort out the little niggles on the boat.
Mike N3491
Appologies Mike,
Was running around so much all day that didn't realise you had gear failure as well, what went bang on yours?
Hopefully video footage will be available in the not too distant future but I know Graham is busy at the moment so be patient!
Here are a few clips to wet your appetite, you'll have to come to the Dinghy Show to see the full material, will be well worth waiting for!
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=429310868565817412&hl=en-GB
Pretty cool footage! Wish I had been there...
I liked the audio from the film boat too - it adds an anticipatory moment to the whole thing. It might be useful to use that type of technique (at the editing phase) if the 12 association decides to persue the training video thing still further, although I found the step - by - step approach very useful too.
Cheers to one and all!
Jim.
Chirs Jordan, a BSC member, took a few pics as well so here is some evidence that not only caroline did some mining!
and caroline...
and Matt and Sam in the morning
I am sorting out a login so that I can post all images so far of the series in the photo gallery so more pics coming soon.....
I loved the despairing screams from the RS200 coming the other way!
[quote by=Jeremy_C link=Blah.cgi?b=Cool1,m=1199737621,s=8 date=1200425313]Chirs Jordan, a BSC member, took a few pics as well so here is some evidence that not only caroline did some mining![/quote]
Timmy's obviously had a few too many mince pies...
Having problems getting all the pics I've got on the photo gallery as I seem to be limited to 1MB of space. But there are a few more to browse though on the link below, thanks again to Chris Jordan.
http://www.burghfieldsailing.org/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPWS_Album_op=view&PHPWS_Album_id=57
and the current standings in the series are here..... well done Bim!
http://www.burghfieldsailing.org/content/results/show.php?page=2008_open_n12_winter.htm
Couldn't get all the photots on the 12 website so here is a link tp them at BSC instead:
http://www.burghfieldsailing.org/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPWS_Album_op=view&PHPWS_Album_id=58&PAGER_limit=16&PAGER_start=0&PAGER_section=1
Brilliant pictures and video.
All I'm going to say is only a RS sailor would tack next to the gybe mark!....
Hmmmm, ............ perhaps someone we all know secretly owns an RS.................?!!!
just a note for those who can make it tomorrow, the forecast is 17mph westerly, a whole lot less gusty than last week and due to the rains this week there is a sign saying "Road Closed" if approaching from the M4 side. Please ignore this sign, the water has drained away and the club is accessible as usual.