More BLSS photos

Another page of photos, this time all supplied by Jim McNair

The one below is a reminder of the heavy traffic in the Graham Tech fleet.

Kip Cruising Club v. Mr Alan Mackie

Kip Cruising Club, for those who have never heard of it, is group of owners of sub-27 foot boats berthed at reduced rates in Inverkip Marina. The membership number is limited by Kip and they form the bunch of assorted small boats in the shallow area in front of the Chartroom. There is even at least one enthusiastic racing Sadler 25 amongst the members. Earlier this year they received a claim for damages from Mr Alan Mackie trading as 197aerial.co.uk, for the unauthorised use of one of his aerial photographs on their virtually members-only website. This is of interest to Clydesailing as this is the same individual who made a claim on me last year. From the far from resource-rich Kip Cruising Club Mr Mackie demanded £2400 but the club decided to contest the case, had a whip-round among the members to establish a fighting fund and eventually on 3rd June appeared, represented by a local solicitor, at Greenock Sheriff Court. The reports we hear are that as the Sheriff wished to resolve the dispute without going to a formal proof, the Club raised its offer to £750 on condition that no costs were to be paid. It is reported that Mr Mackie was extraordinarily displeased to be instructed to accept such a reduced sum and at the end of the proceedings he announced to the KCC solicitor, in what must be a relatively unusual statement to a legal professional, that their clients were 'scum'. However it is not all good news for the Kip Cruising Club as a fairly substantial legal bill has to be met. Whilst Mr Mackie may be dissatisfied with this particular outcome he can console himself with further opportunities for wealth enhancement on 20th June when he continues his proceedings against Skyway Helicopters at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court. Thereafter on 21st July he faces the proprietor of an Inverary guest house at the Dunoon court. If anyone reading this has experience of dealing with Mr Mackie, in respect of either the legitimate or unauthorised use of his images please get in touch via the email form.

Updated : We note from the intense discussion on the forum that the lifejacket light clause has been suspended for this event in an amendment to the Notice of Race. No excuses now. Just need a crew. Where??

Old Pulteney Scottish IRC Championships at Kip 7th/8th June. Organised by Mudhook Yacht Club and with highly drinkable prizes from Old Pulteney. The last bit of intensive racing on the Clyde before Cumbraes weekend. At Tarbert the RNLI inspectors were warning us that they'll be doing inspections at Kip and those lifejackets that they grudgingly accepted at BLSS will have to be sporting lights for this one. We won't be racing in the dark (we hope) but the event is ISAF Cat4 and as from 2008 Cat 4 means lifejacket lights. You can check for yourself on www.isaf.org.

Also on the subject of lifejackets there is a just-out manufacturer recall of some of the popular Seago lifejackets sold last year. Return 'dangerous' lifejacket for a replacement - though that might be difficult for the 7/8th June. I don't know what the danger is but details of the recall and how spot if your device is affected are on ybw.com

Bell Lawrie Scottish Series

What a fantastic weekend of sailing. Has the Scottish Series ever had better conditions? 12-20knots of consistent and reasonably warm wind from the east and brilliant sunshine just had to make for one of the best. The results are all on the clyde.org site and you'll all have been browsing them by now anyway. Congratulations to Gery Trentesaux and his team on Lady Courrier for taking the overall trophy. We were pleased to see it wrested from the Irish after so long and in a production boat too unlike the hot Kers and Mills brought up from Eire. However we were happy to see the venerable Rosie still doing the stuff in Class 2. Here's a few pictures snapped by me after our racing had finished. Must have been Friday as the sun wasn't out in full.

In Class 3 our considerable efforts were not exactly matched by our placings but we had a good time anyway. Well done to Paul Scutt and the others who have finally got Carmen 2 going really well and presented a very tidy scoreline.

An immaculately attired rail as you might expect on Duckwall Pooley. We watched them do a splendid piece of spinnaker destruction soon after the start of the inbound race but apparently it was a really old one.

I don't have anything from the other fleets obviously but Alan Henderson of fotoboat.com has sent in a couple of the Round Inchmarnock race where he appears to have been on board Aquasmart and on fotoboat.com you will find lots of pics of the CYCA fleet. If any other photographer has some pictures they'd be prepared to send in in exchange for a link to their own site then go ahead.

Similarly if anyone has any comments or stories send them in too and I can edit them and post in a bloggesque kind of way.

In IRC3 it was quite hard work with a small boat in brisk wind. Nothing went right on day 1 but after some rig tweaking things improved but not before Saturday when we had a perfect start and two minutes off the line the main halyard snapped. Back to Tarbert for a new one and some mountaineering techiniques performed by Chris to get to the top of a 7/8 mast from the spinnaker sheave. I had never realised that they hold Scottish Country dancing competitions in the tent while the fleet is away. The other SJ320 SKI (Sailing The Kid's Inheritance) looked good in light blue. We heard it was a spare hull bought from the Seaquest factory and does indeed have a Mumm30 mast and keel. I had hoped to meet the owner but never did. They were certainly well faster than us but not fast enough to hit the top 3. In the available wind the First 36.7s and Enigma were hard to stay up with and Carmen certainly put on an excellent showing right from the start and kept ahead of the two J35s. Poor old Hops had to retire when their rudder blade fell off the stock. We always find Freebird well sailed and hard to get ahead of let alone make up the time on but even she had to settle for a 7th place. The start lines may not have had quite the aggressiveness of Class 2 which we watched from a relatively safe distance but there was no messing. Njinsky we note won her start line protest against Moondance in the last race. Messing with giant Swans anywhere is a scary business as far as we are concerned and we'll not mention our dreadful mark rounding where Enigma nearly came through our transom.

Although the wind and sunshine was great some of us found the windward leeward courses which were pretty much the same each day rather repetitive and had hoped for a triangle which wouldn't have been hard to set up in the relatively steady breeze. The CYCA fleet had some Olympic courses so maybe windward leewards are just what you do in high level IRC. I don't know. We heard more than one complaint from the CYCA crowd about the long Round Inchmarnock race following on the next day from the round the Loch race. Although the Inchmarnock race was a great sail the feeling seemed to be that one distance race was enough, certainly for the CYCA spinnaker lot. Maybe the white sails people were happy with what was on offer. Worth discussing for next year anyway. If you have comments post them on the forum - it helps word get around. Having said that, the on the water race management in the Graham Technology fleet was as top notch as ever. Every race started on time with minimum delay in between and with the informative and helpful VHF broadcasts it is clear that they are out to try to give everyone the most enjoyable experience possible.

As for Tarbert itself it seemed much as usual and neither quieter nor noisier than in recent years except for the unwelcome racket from the radio station which in my opinion the village could well do without. The radio station is a fine idea only it should be heard through radios by those who choose to do so and indeed we were able to listen to the prizegiving on our return journey down the loch. Chas only made two trips to the tent (past the old curmudgeon's bedtime as a rule) where the bands were far too heedrum hodrum for his liking and didn't flip the switch at all. When the lot playing on Sunday launched into Flower of Scotland, that dirge-like anthem to failure when everyone was up for dancing, they made it clear that they hadn't a clue. Bring back Mustang Sally - all is forgiven. And as I'm always accused of emphasising the downsides we went to the West Loch Hotel for our crew dinner. An error. But no matter what, everyone but everyone will have left thinking what a fantastic sailing venue is Tarbert and the preceding gripes long forgotten. Sailing just doesn't get better than that.

I found some random video clips from after racing and sewed them together as Clydesailing's first venture onto youtube. See below.

Another page of random photos here

Hot Deals in Big Stinkboat Sell-Out at Kip this weekend

Scottish Island Peaks Race - full sailing and running results now up on the official SIPR site