Brewin Dolphin Scottish Series

Here's the overall winner. And if you want to know the story behind the Christie thing it's here. More stuff later. I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours.

We know who this is wearing some remains of Carmen's spinnaker in the Vic. 2.2k gbp and new for this event we heard. You'd need a drink or three after that but evidently it still has some pulling power. Not that there weren't spinnakers popping all over the place on Saturday. We saw maybe eight go on the first run. Second pic is the glittering stars of Tigh Solius II having a barbie on the poop deck. The all-knowing tactician is hidden behind the burger flipper's hand and that's Hurrell wearing the bunnet and who was later to hurrel a burger at me (and miss). We can only speculate as to the identity of the blonde item.

Where was Troikka? Well she was at Tarbert but tied up, full of Morgan's and with the Webasto blowing most of the time. Her owner is seen here on Ian Mclachlan's J22, the smallest boat in the IRC fleet. This is quite a wet little boat and we spent most of the weekend fighting our way round the course in conditions that were really a bit too harsh for the poor thing, particularly on Saturday morning when, while planing down the run we capsized to windward causing the helmsman to do a back flip out of the cockpit and your writer find himself over the side. Fortunately I was in what used to be described as the dinghy scoop position, clinging on to whatever I could, hoping somebody would get on to the keel but once the spinnaker halyard was let go it came up and we started to sail away minus owner who put himself into swimming overdrive and was duly hauled back on board. Despite a wrecked spinnaker pole we carried on racing and weren't even last. I had some decent pics from Friday's racing but after its unexpected immersion the memory card appears to have died along with the pocketable digital camera so all these are from a bit later.

Here's the young folk on the 707 Wildebeest. Largely beginners I heard but they must have learnt a bit and good on them for trying hard.

This is the oddity known as Antix Beag, the modified 1720 in Class 3. With the sail number IRL 17200 one might speculate that this is a very early 1720 which was no longer competitive. Whatever, as you can see it has a cuddy and guardrails and looked quite tidy, as though the deck were a whole new moulding. As might perhaps be expected in those conditions it didn't exactly shine when up against some well sailed 35 footers. Also in Class 3 we heard some moonshine to the effect that on Sunday, Grand Cru flew in one Mr Pender in order to match race Grand Cru and her rival Now or Never down the pan. Probably complete nonsense m'lud.

On the other hand the Corby 37 'Impetuous' (ex Blondie) is one very cool boat and took Class 2 quite comfortably from Bateleur 97.

This is class 2 starting what I think is probably their last race. Top start for the Deja Vu mob but last place for them in the end.

I have no pics of whatever went on up the loch simply because I wasn't there. It appears to me, purely to foment outrage, that in CYCA the favourably handicapped boats did well with the Impala 'Bambi' sailing well up to her rating in the conditions. One might speculate that Cara of Kip's poor performance was at least partly due to her crew's notorious on shore performance. But I'm told they don't get out much. In Sportboat, young Chas Frize's impeccable scoreline must have had him in contention for the overall and our friends in Water Tiger did well too.

Finally, congratulations to the Checkmate Sailing team on Christie Cancer Care who narrowly took the very competitive Class 3 from Salamander XX. As we all know the overall trophy does not always go to the holder of a perfect scoreline but theirs was quite perfect enough and the good cause sponsorship thing probably helped the judge's decison too.

PS Graeme Galbraith is to be encouraged to send in at least some of his entertaining Corner House rant. I forget why it was that he suggested Kevin Aitken should be wearing stilettos and a nurse's uniform. I think everyone missed the tent and in the village hall, whoever the guitar duo were on the last night, they were far from being a good choice, no actually they were rubbish. The Vic didn't even have it's tent extension but the band they crammed in to the bar were pretty good and for whatever reason, unfathomable to me, the Corner House (and the road outside) continues to be the focal point.

And more seriously, many of us were completely fed up with waiting between races for the perfectly set windward-leeward course. It was suggested before, after Kip regatta, that in changeable conditions it might be worth just giving up and setting a course around available marks. How about a rule that says after say an hour of diddling about waiting for a constant wind, the race officer stops tearing his hair out and sets a course round a bunch of laid marks? You could have just a rectangle of 4 buoys which would give a few options. It would be better than spending half the day idling around in the cold and rain.

Scottish Series Top Tips

No need to seek out Yachting Life for the runners and riders as they call them. Hurrell has his ear to the ground, or something like that possibly found in the bottom of a pint glass and on Marine Blast has outlined his top tips in his inimitable punctuation-free-never-mind-the-spelling-stream-of-consciousness entertaining style. Well worth a look and his IRC predictions look pretty sane to me. We'll be interested to see the future prospects of the BDSS after this one. As I have already said below I think Tarbert has been despoiled and my personal desire to go back there is much reduced. But then I'm a card-carrying old curmudgeon who is glad to be out of Kip this weekend anyway. Ghastly exhibition of stinkboats and flash cars being prepared there for the attention of wad waving drug and arms dealers as the economy flushes down the tubes.

Serpent Yacht Club Muster

Couple of additional pix by Alan McLeod who was on Tanit. More here and here if you can stand close ups of the smirking Tanits

photo Alan McLeod

Photo Alan McLeod

We went on the Serpent Yacht Club muster/race thingy to Tarbert at the weekend there and what a stonking sail it was too. There were just 7 starters off Kip on Sat morning with a simple course - round Garroch Head and get to Tarbert. We were just 4 up on Troikka with the valued assistance of Mr & Mrs Micky Finn IV, but Tanit, as the Committee boat, had to wait for quite a while (exact amount perhaps arguable) for the last of the recalcitrant Serpents to clear the line before they could drop the mooring and head off in hot pursuit. Once round Garroch Head they caught us but in high 20 kts following breeze and a useful sea we were both having a great downwind ride. We were sailing quite low to our polars (actually to avoid having to gybe) which didn't suit Tanit, despite the pumping efforts of Big Al (click for a tiny video- I'll have to work on preserving video quality) and so they headed up and planed away to the Kintyre shore and I'm sorry I don't have a photo of that. However we turned out to be ahead in the approach to Tarbert and managed line honours and were allowed an official win although it all really depended on the start delay they registered. After a few drinks who really cares because it was a great sail with just a few white knuckle moments. Tanit can claim a top dial speed of 13.1 and Troikka showed 12.4 off a particularly helpful wave system. Kip to Tarbert in 3 hours round the long way is pretty decent by anyone's standards. November Lady, Tom Hutchison's Moody 31 took class 2 and Douglas Clow shredded one of Guilty's spinnakers into small pieces and no we're not sure if it was the ancient hideous one with the prison arrows.
Sunday's Ladies' race showed that Roisin Harris has clearly been working on sailing Tanit upwind and with the undoubted benefit of a well filled windward rail they pulled well away to a convincing and well deserved win from Mrs S who, apart from a 10 minute wee shot, was really first timing on the wheel on Troikka. On Sat evening there were over 60 members attending at the Anchor Hotel for a relatively unexceptional meal but all things considered, a fine weekend was had by all. The Serpent Yacht Club, incidentally, is open to those with variably tenuous connections to the health care professions and new members are welcome.

As an aside and never one to miss an opportunity for a grump, I would have to say that I think that the appearance of Tarbert has been completely ruined by the plonking of an ugly marina in the middle of the harbour. The new pontoons, being well made and nicely serviced are full of permanent berth holders with just one of the main fingers for visitors. It will be interesting to see how it all copes with the BDSS fleet next weekend. And the showers are now free so you don't need to stay in them for 10mins just to get your pound's worth so hopefully the queues will be shorter.

Speaking of BDSS we were parked near a very shiny new-looking, immaculate and very sexy flush decked wooden yacht and were trying to decide if it was an immaculate restoration or a completely new build - we could see nothing that looked old on it. However Peter Wright, seen trying to escape out of shot, informed us that this is Opposition, what was the famous Morning Cloud II now owned and totally restored by Jamie Mathieson, he of Brewin Dolphin, the major sponsors of our best loved sailing event.

Savills RWYC Kip Regatta

Having insulted Class 1, here's a pic by Alan Henderson to show that it can get just a little interesting on these mighty buses. More of his pics on www.fotoboat.com

Also Neill Ross was out on Sunday and has his pictures here

anne sutherland

Firstly you want the results. They are here.

This one won't go down in the annals as one of the best Kip regattas. Perhaps the Saturday will be remembered as one of the coldest and most miserable sailing days any of us can remember in early May. It was more like something from the winter series. Johnny Watson, once again the PRO for this event had a particularly difficult job as the wind was all over the place. Our widget said the wind was averaging around the 15-16 knots as per forecast for Saturday morning but it eased down later with development of holes and why am I writing this. It is too dull. Anyway we got 2 races on Sat, the second one, after a chilly wait had a ridiculous start line and turned into a no tacks beat and a straight run back. The appearance of a sizeable container ship during the last round helped to split the fleet somewhat. with a few reckoning they were across. We went behind.

clydesailing

Sunday was showers, sunny intervals and no wind/where is the next puff coming from. The CV Bandit was driving around desperately, desperate enough it would appear, to have IPC Mackenzie phoning a friend for inspiration.

clydesailing

As ever, by the time a regatta is over my brain has gone even softer than usual and I can only remember bits of what happened in the class I was in - Class 2 on this occasion with the new boat and which class, I think was one of the largest, most competitive and interesting and it was the first time the 2 ex-Quokkas, each owned by a Charlie, have raced together on the Clyde. Tanit seem to be back on form with their new stick tuned up properly and we didn't even notice anybody stuck in the rigging. It was a BH36 1-2 with Bateleur taking her first splash of the year and second place. Third was Grand Cru with Andy Malcolm on board wearing his Quantum sails hat. A wizard suit of new Quantums were also featured on the Elan 40.

Like MarineBlast we would have tipped Carmen to take Class3 but in fact it was the young folk who say ni on niJinsky who overcame and took the mighty overall prize as well. The much heralded A31 made its debut on Sunday and is seen here before her first race with the Djinnmeister on the helm and subsequently scored a 4th in her one race.

clydesailing

This was the first KipRegatta where FFlying FFifteens have had a class but in the event only a few turned up and who could blame them. Graeme Galbraith's FFunky Chicken took the prize. You can see a bit of a FF in this pic which is mainly featuring Prime Suspect. There is nothing here about Class 1 as it is just too boring. Playing FT$E - yawn. Local Hero wins again - yawn some more.

clydesailing

Anyway, the Sunday race was a bit of a mess as after Class 1 had got away and Class 2 had a general recall, the first leg turned into a spinnaker run off the line. Normally the race might have been abandoned but such was the necessity to get a race in that the committee carried on regardless. Class 2's second attempt was with a black flag and Animal and Salamander went home. The pic below is the first not- actually-windward leg as we catch the snotties from our post recall place at the back of the queue.

clydesailing

The sportboat class was a poor looking affair with only the Water Tigers and Young Pretenders being worthy of the name in our opinion. I'm sure Sonars are really worthy etc etc but to the casual onlooker they look utterly uninspiring as seen here.

photo Anne Sutherland

Here's a pic of Sorr of Appin, merely because it's a good photo.

photo Anne Sutherland

So there it is. The Hog was roasted though it could easily have been washed away and anyway it shoved off about 9pm when it would have done well to stay for the band of Squashed Frogs who turned in possibly the best set I can remember at Kip. Thanks to the gentlemen of the Royal Western Yacht Club who have been running this indispensible event for 20 years now and to Savills whose sponsorship is hugely appreciated. It's now time to look forward to the BDSS (makes me think of some sort of dental stormtrooper) or in my case look with increasing trepidation as I have signed up to go on the very tiny J22 Hobbes Express III and if Loch Fyne is as cold as it was on Saturday I will probably never be able to type again. At least I'll have a warm place to escape to on Troikka.

A bit more on the Kip Regatta here.

I know there are mountain bikers out there in the sailing community. This is a wonderful video, superbly photographed in Edinburgh and beautifully edited with a good soundtrack. Even if you've seen it before it's worth another look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o

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