Wanted - Sailors with a good memory

[ken goddard]

I am in the process of reviewing the National Twelve Handicaps for Club Racing (see P.9 of the Annual Booklet), with a view to recommending amendments. In the process I have analysed 11 races at 4 major events, on reasonably open water, in the last 18 months, to find out what Yardstick numbers boats in the various sail number ranges are actually sailing to.
I am about to publish my report but I thought it would be desirable to add roughly what the wind strength was in certain of these races where I have not already had information. These races are as follows,
Ripon Summer Event 2007 - Races 3 & 4 (on the Sunday)
Hykeham Summer Event 2008 - Races 3 & 4 (on the Sunday)
Burton Week 2008 - Races 7 (the Burton), 8 & 9
Can any participants (or helpers) with good memories, e-mail to me what they may remember of the wind conditions? (click on the tab at the bottom of the page)  
Thanks
Ken Goddard (N.2300 "Duodecimal")

[Derek]

Hykeham was a complete drifter never more than 5 kts of wind.
 
Last 3 races of the champs were good solid planing - F4+ on flat water. Proper Baggy conditions - for those with good memories.
 

Ripon I didn't attend.
Good luck with the handicaps.
All the best
 
Derek

[John Meadowcroft]

Ripon 07 - Windy/shifty.  Capsizing weather!
Hykeham - agreed with Derek
Burton Week race 7, burton, F4 generally, possibly 5 at times
Burton Week races 8/9 (Thursday).  Race 8 had big shift on first beat that had a much bigger impact on the race than anything else that day.  No more than F3, often F2.  Race 9 had a little more wind .
Hope this helps.
John

[THG]

John - Ripon 07 on the Sunday was not that windy - that was first the day I used your 'new' sails and I was sailing with Elliot - was probably shifty but don't recall any capsizes on the Sunday (Saturday was mush windier / gustier).  I'd say it was around a 2-3 - wind picked up a bit after the pursuit race. 

[Kevin]

If Ripon and Hykeham qualify as reasonably open water, I hate to think what some of the other places people sail at are like. Both qualify as puddles with the usual local vagaries in my book!
 
Kevin

[FuzzyDuck]

Ripon 07 was our first open in Fuzzy Duck and Sunday was not very windy.  The pursuit was absolute maximum low F2 with lots of major shifts, typical of Ripon. The wind was better but not much more for race 3&4. We have a few pictures, it looks light and I remember Matt not getting on the side until the last beat of race 4.
Burton Cup was seriously windy, then wasn't the whole Burton week this year
Simon & Matt
3470

[icecreamman]

Ripon 07 on the Saturday was a tad windy from what I remember after sailing Witchcraft. Sunday was a drifter however

[Jane Wade]

'Sailors with a good memory' - sounds like an oxymoron.  If we all had good memories we would never go sailing - we would remember the times we almost won, froze, capsized, were overtaken unfairly etc.  I have a bad memory so only remember the force 4+, sunny days where we overtake everyone on the course!  ;-)
 
Jane 

[Tim Gatti]

Ken - Ripon '07 - Saturday was very gusty and a good Force 4+  - some vintage sailors opted not to risk their craft but we went out in N341 and got blown over a couple of times.  However, the Sunday was much calmer - probably F2 -F3 at tops.
Hykeham - Sunday - very light - hardly any wind at all at times - especially through the narrows by the Clubhouse F1 - 2 max
Burton - Races 7, 8 and 9 - would concur with Meds - Burton Race was a good thrash in F4 to F5. Races 8 and 9 were the calmest weather we'd had all week and sunny(!). F3 dropping to F2 - fading at the end of Race 9 which made for a long slow beat back to the beach.

[ken goddard]

Many thanks to all those who supplied very useful comments on the wind conditions at the various Regattas/races which I listed - except for Kevin, whose dismissive remarks did nothing to encourage me in trying to get data for a time-consuming and difficult task, which I hope will prove useful in due course.
Ken Goddard

[Kevin]

Ken,
 
Sorry you took my remarks offensive, I was just making the observation that IMHO there is no way either Ripon or Hykeham can be regarded as open water. They are both surrounded by land on all sides, have many trees disturbing the wind, have what others have referred to as "narrow channels" between each of their two ponds and are characterised by typical small inland venue shifts and gusts. Having said all that, they are both great clubs where the welcomes we receive are very warm and the effort put into ensuring we have a good time cannot be faulted, but open water they are not.
 
Kevin 

[John Murrell (Guest)]

Ken,
 
I have been running a Twelve h/cap series for the past couple of years here at Salcombe using the associations published numbers. The results are published on the SYC website is thats of any use? http://www.salcombeyc.org.uk/content/racing-results/
 
John

[ken goddard]

John,
many thanks for your offer of the Salcombe data. I will have a look at that shortly.
Kevin,
I understand where your coming from in attacking my choice of venues for getting data for the review of handicaps for use in club racing, but I had a rather limited choice to go on. I needed to have venues where there were lots of boats sailing; as far as possible to have at least 3 boats in a particular sail number range, and sailing in the wind range of Force 1 to Force 4/5 inclusive. I also thought that I was most likely to get support and elapsed time data from Race Officers of clubs which had some Twelves in their home fleets.
Despite your view of the limitations of the venues, one of the better ones for data, for example,was Ripon 2007, Race 4 where there were 28 boats, and boats in 5 of the 6 ranges of sail number. 
Please wait to see my interim note in the next issue of the Newsletter and then you can get even more angry!
Ken Goddard
 

[Kevin]

Ken,
 
I don't have a problem with your choice of venues, and I am certainly not angry. It is just your description of them as open water that I take issue with.
 
Kevin

[FuzzyDuck]

Ken,
Minor point but having sailed 3413 this year, against 3411, both single bottom AC boats, as is 3414 a AC Design 8.
Shouldn't the handicap range be
3272 - 3414 = 1104
3415+ = 1093?
Simon