GTI Polaris Regatta or How to Lose your Hair in Two Days

Excellent race management, excellent ceilidh and shore side stuff and excellent turnout of 21 Flying Fifteens. Also present - several 'adult' dinghies, kids dinghies, just a couple of Loch Longs and some Pipers (the home fleet being a bit depleted by race office duty, holidays bla bla bla etc. Nevermind). With not many active keelboats at HLSC it was encouraging to see a good turnout of visitors in the white sail section. The racing was a touch frustrating with the tide generally being stronger than the wind and certainly more consistent in direction than the fickle zephyrs which rarely bothered the sails.

It was no easy win for John McMillan in the Fifteens in a quality fleet with visitors from all over trying their hardest. All the top end boats had at least one duff result and at the other end some of the newer guys got some encouraging placings. The Flying Fifteen starts were very tight with individual and general recalls and boats being squeezed out at the starts. Frank exchanges were heard as rafting at marks become commonplace and skippers were seen tearing their hair out as they drifted into each other whilst underworked crews smirked in the bilges.

Don't really know what happened in the other classes but Alan Neville confirmed his top dog position in the Pipers.

Looking forward to GTI Polaris in 2009 already.

Whit? Nae windaes?

This is the new Nemo 3, the latest acquisition of Andy Malcolm and is somewhat different from Nemo 2. It's a Sydney 40 and has recently been brought up from Hamble Point to Largs. She is currently a very technical boat with runners and checks on a carbon rig and boom but she'll be having some IRC mods done over the winter on keel, mast, and the fitting of a sprit. This may not all happen at once. She will of course have Quantum Sails onboard and also all work and upgrades will be carried out by Andrew Malcolm Yachting. The Sydney 40 was designed as an IMS offshore race boat so she is solid and in many ways overbuilt for what she was originally designed to do. This lends herself to the mods required for IRC in which the intention is to be active next season. If you want to know more contact Andrew Malcolm Yachting : Sailmakers and Yacht Services Tel: 07717278812

Scottish Two Handed Race -updated

Drooping spinnakers against a hesitant ray of light don't do justice to the tedium that was the 2 handed race. The sail to the Holy Isle was fine but once round the lump the lack of wind was so frustrating that had we not been already short of hands I might have gnawed off one of my own. All credit to the only wife crew in the spinnaker classes (on Troika) for maintaining relative sanity and composure. Yacht of the week going to Misjif is very well deserved if Misjif's performance (although maybe not her colour scheme) on Saturday was anything to go by. In Class 3, this IOR relic sailed right through Class2 taking the angles and doing tidy gybes and looked to be finishing just about with the best of them. They may have been beaten by the Hesperus H Boat but looked to me that they could have pretty mucn have won class 2 as well. You can see in this pic how glassy calm it was. Don't know how it was round Arran but glad I wasn't there.

We were trading tacks with Ian Thomson's Gibsea 41 Be Happy with her prizewinning all female crew Margaret & Jana Thomson. seen here with another wilting er, bag. Results are up in the usual place - Largs SC website

Alan Henderson of Fotoboat sends in a couple of pictures: A pair of salty old seadogs. Combined age??? On yer bike.

Black sails to the fore in Class 5: Connelly & Aikman we think.

Clydeport Cumbraes Regatta

My camera failed me so I have no photos of this event. However Marc Turner was out taking his typically classy shots which were shown later in Largs SC and he has very kindly donated a few photos to show here. Weather forecasts for Saturday were hugely mixed but two races were completed before the rain arrived and in decent wind of up to around 20kt from the south. It was a long trail out to the start area and the IRC fleet had a 10 min postponement to allow latecomers to arrive. There was a lumpy chop off the north end of the Cumbrae which gave some of us smaller boats a bumpy old time and a very wet one for our foredeck crew. However we only pumped 3 and a half buckets of briny out of the forepeak so it could have been worse. In the second race most of the crew were admiring a mighty wipeout by Rogue Trader and just a few minutes later we stuffed up a gybe and did one ourselves. I think that's when the camera got wet. The inflatable sheep certainly had a good dipping. Our gear survived but there was damage elsewhere with ripped spinnakers - Be Happy and Wookie spring immediately to mind. Fleet A had windward leewards and sharp race management although we were a wee bit miffed to have our second race shortened at only about 2.30pm. However the Fleet B CYCA punters were having a good old moan about a near 2 hour delay between their races - not something that encourages racing turnouts by any means so we hope that some lessons will be taken away by the long suffering CV crew. It was a return to form for Playing FTSE in Class1 with Carmen and Pure Magic leading the field in Class 2.
Apres sail on Saturday survived the indescribably awful Fairlie Folk whose dirges were topped off with some shocking bagpipewailing. Fortunately the Keep er Lit band proved highly competent and once the form had been set by the CCC commodore taking the floor with the Racing Secretary, LSC was soon bouncing. Whose is the shiny head centre of photo?

Sunday's round the Island was a good day out with just enough wind of up to about 14kt still from the S. Not sure why Carmen dropped out of Class 2 which was convincingly led by Airtricity (ex Shamal). Surely they will be installing an Aerogen soon?? I must confess to a slight disappointment that a 2nd gun and 20 mins or so on Farr e Nuff was still not enough to get Troika better than 4th but I guess if John Kent were not to get the trophy back he would have to redecorate his living room. I didn't note winners elsewhere but did notice that Mark Bradshaw's LL Pamina won everything in Class 4 from well behind. You could hardly call it a revival but the Sigma class is soldiering on with a small group of 4 or 5. As ever we were impressed by the skiff and cat action round the back of the Cumbrae and as with the little Farr and the LL, Toppers always do well in this race. The results are now up on the Largs SC website . Here's the trad shot of the winners posing with their pots on the LSC balcony. 10 more quality images from Marc Turner PFM pictures here. There were some particularly nice photos of youngsters sailing their singlehanded dinghies and the respective parents should waste no time getting on to Marc to buy copies.

Marc Turner PFM pictures

All in all that was once again a really good event and the organising committee and all those who ran the event ashore and on the water deserve our thanks.

Sonar Nationals - were supposed to happen at Rhu same weekend as the Cumbraes regatta. Anyone have any word/pics on that?

CCC Troon Regatta

We weren't there but Troon have set us results and a few pics. The weather clearly turned out a lot better than the misery which had been forecast. See results here.

Solid Gold

photo: Alastair Skinner

No it's not an average day on the Clyde. It's Qindao and if you peer through the murk you can see Ben Ainslie in his Finn and the 3 Yngling Blondes. Many thanks to Alastair Skinner of Shanghai for use of the photo. Alastair's home club is Port Edgar and he has a Clyde built Bolero out there.

Admiration and Respect for Golden Ben Ainslie and the Yngling Girls and now Paul Goodison for his Laser gold plus Joe Glanfield and Nick Rogers on 470 silver.

Didn't those final races in gruesome conditions on Sunday look awesome? Fantastic performances and just wonderful results. No point in me trying to make any comments here. The sailing has been great , despite generally lighter than desirable conditions and the TV coverage worth getting up for. It's just good to have our sailors bring home a pile of medals.

News From the Holy Loch

16 Flying Fifteens including visitors from Ardfern, Rothesay and Cardwell Bay took part in a 4 race regatta at Holy Loch over the weekend of 2nd and 3rd August. Competition was tight and the Sailing Secretary, Bill Aitchison did a splendid job outwitting the weather to set true courses. Genisis, Ffunky Chicken, Nae Fear (the men that fear forgot) and Gilmac all won races and there was much place changing throughout the fleet throughout the event. First prize was a print from a specially commissioned painting showing Ffifteens racing on the loch. Dan Challis and Kirsten Shaughnessy in Genisis took it home. The entire squad went straight to a Dunoon curry house for food and booze after the second race on Saturday and then on to a pub crawl which left one crew too knackered to compete at all on the Sunday whilst several others looked a touch jaded !!!!

Judged to be a great success the event, which is for Classic and Silver ffs, will now become an annual fixture though the date may change as at least two local ff crews and some potential west coast visitors had prior commitments at West Highland Week. The next BIG ff event on the loch will be GTI Polaris Regatta mid September and we expect at least 25 ffs. Apart from being a fine event itself GTI Polaris will serve as a warm up for the Scottish Nationals the following weekend at Monklands. Be Aware- The M8 will no doubt be littered with broken trailers that weekend!.

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