The annual Herne Bay St George Cup competition against Hampton Pier Yacht Club this year took place on the 19th August with the racing hosted by Herne Bay Sailing Club with a lovely tea hosted by Hampton Pier. 

Despite poor visibility and heavy rain at noon, six Hampton Pier boats rigged and began the sail to the other end of Herne Bay to be met by seven Herne Bay boats. Richard, RO, set two handicap 45-minute races. The marks were set in a parallelogram shape, but to spice up the racing the competitors were to race from the start to mark 1 to 3 to 2 to 4 and then back past the start line.  The additional challenge, however, turned out to be the wind (and perhaps the waves) as it swung between the pier and the clocktower. 

The first race was particularly close with exciting racing and all the fleet finishing within 10 minutes, despite the odd capsize or two. There was only 14 seconds separating first and second place on corrected time and the 
First place: Harry N (Hampton)
Second place: Laurie Dengate and Jo Norrington (HBSC)
Third place: Olaf Throndsen (HBSC).

A couple of marks were moved for race 2 to compensate (partially) for the wind shifts, and then the racers were off again.  

First place: Laurie Dengate and Jo Norrington (HBSC) 
Second place: Harry N (Hampton)
Third place: Olaf Throndsen (HBSC).

The overall cup results were based on the top six boats from each fleet. Hampton won race 1 on low points and HBSC won race 2 on low points. Combining the results led to the St Georg'es Cup being awarded to Herne Bay SC. Harry N won the Youth Cup for the third year in a row. 



Everyone at HBSC enjoyed their afternoon sail, the camaraderie and excellent tea at Hampton Pier and many HBSC members finished a great day by attending the Herne Bay Jazz and Swing Fest. We look forward to next year's Cup. 

Quotes from the competitors:
`Combined age of 94 beats 16 year old in endurance test'. 

The day after the Herne Bay pier anemometer recorded 39 knot gusts, the sea was very smooth at HBSC and the wind WSW to W, avering around 12mph but gusts to 25mph.

It was the annual short short course racing but with only three boats, probably due to the recent forecasts.  There were 3 increasingly-shorter races (due to the tide) with Olaf and Graham taking turns at racing in Olaf's Laser Radial while the other helmed the Safety Boat with crew David. Laurie and Jo raced the 2000 and Lester raced his Radial. They all enjoyed the afternoon. Wind dropped during the afternoon, but was still gusty right to the end. The RO managed to get everyone off the water successfully (just!) by 1545h as low tide was 16.18h. Laurie and Jo were the winners. Congratulations to them and thanks from the sailors to those in the race tower and galley for sticking with it. 

Quotes from some of the sailors: 
I had a blast!
It was fun!
Nice afternoon sailing with a little bit of wind. 

The Pirates, Manta Rays, Sting Rays, Dolphins and Barracudas ready to go on the icecream cruise on the Wednesday morning:

Clubweek 2019 started on Monday with beautiful weather and perfect wind, though we knew that we were not due to see the same on the Tuesday or the Wednesday. After a welcome briefing, the 51 5-17 years olds dispersed to rig their boats.  Here are the Sting Rays, the younger new sailors, sailing in their Optibats: 

And here are the Manta Rays-ranging from new to sailing to able to sail but not a triangle--in their Picos and RS Teras, having a practice before playing Ben says... and demonstrating they can sail on one leg: 

Here are some Dolphins:

And here are the Barracudas:

The wind on day 2 was a bit more exciting and only the Sharks went a sailing:

The wind on day 3 started nicely and some Sharks, Barracudas and Dolphins went out in 2s and 3s. However, the wind picked up and the Fevas were soon back on shore after falling over several times. Puffin, Salulso and a couple of powerboats took the little ones out for a ride while the 420s and the four-up Vision young sailors showed the adults how to reach in big seas and gusty weather:

The final afternoon included racing for the keenest, litter picking for all and the Great Custard Pie challenge: 

A great three days enjoyed by all the children, the instructors and their assistants, the safety boat teams, the shore teams, galley teams and all the parents/guardians who got stuck in too. And finally also hopefully enjoyed by A and T, the organisers who did an amazing job. Thank you all.  

Comments from parents: 
Had the very best time!! Thankyou. 

Outstanding fun for both my son and I, with my wife wanting to be part of it next year as well.
You are all a very welcoming bunch of people, thank you.
​

Thursday saw five boats and a power boat head west for the annual clubweek cruise. By launch time the wind was dropping, as predicted, and the fleet went out past the old pier head in order to make the most of the tide and what little wind was left. Just after Hampton, the wind died and everyone turned around and headed for the Hampton beach for lunch. The wind never returned so the Wanderer and Humber towed everyone home after we had finished with our beers or ice creams. 

There will be Paella (including Veggie option) and you are all welcome to eat with us. They’ll also be an auction of promises, games and music – more details to follow. A great way to bookend what will for sure be a brilliant club week.
 
Please do check the link below to find out more about Demelza.
 https://www.demelza.org.uk/  
 
…..and if, with your help, we make our committed target for Demelza, we will be helping out another brilliant local charity http://evasangels.org/
 
Thank you
Mark and Nathan
​

Four members of Herne Bay Photographic Club judged the entries for new photographs for Herne Bay Sailing Club's website this week.   The judges were looking for images that showed good composition, represented the ethos of the sailing club and were interesting.  There were 219 entries from 7 members of HBSC. 

I'm pleased to announce that the winning images were taken by Olaf Throndsen and Ian Moore with Olaf's picture from Push the Boat Out winning the top slot. Four of the winning images are shown below and they will soon appear as the banner images on the website.

I'd like to thank all the photographers and Jane, Peter, Steve and Volker from Herne Bay Photographic Club for their care and attention in choosing the winning pictures.  

Clare

The first day of racing on the Celebration weekend saw Colin Smith and his son James fittingly win the Paul Smith trophy in the Albacore. 

Sunday's racing was epic. Only 6 Lasers and at times only 4 but the competition was enthralling in extremely gusty conditions. Colin Smith, who had won the Paul Smith race the day before in the Albacore, decided to sit out the first race. All competitors sailed Radial rigged boats and in races 2 and 3 Colin gave a master class performance in Laser sailing. Everyone who sailed did themselves proud and capsizes were the order of the day. Ben Skull eventually won the Jim Newbury trophy which is very apt as Jim taught him to sail when he was a youngster at the club.

​Dai Griffiths (Sunday's RO on the right in the right image)

Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th June is the Herne Bay SC Celebration weekend, a time to remember the lives of past members of the sailing club.  There will be a series of five races with two on Saturday and three on Sunday. 

Saturday 15th June
1130 Race 1 Paul Smith Pursuit Race
Lunch
Race 2  handicap race with first placed person winning the Colin Sproxton trophy

Sunday 16th June
Jim Newbery memorial race

1200 Race 3  (or as soon as possible thereafter depending on when the Saxon Shore half marathon runners have cleared the promenade)
Race 4
Race 5 
Depending on the wind, lunch will be either after race 3 or 4. 

Come and enjoy a great weekend. The bar and galley will be open.   

Congratulations to Herne Bay Sailing Club member David Hogben, who has been named on the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2019. He has been awarded the British Empire Medal for his contribution to the community of Herne Bay. 

​David has been instrumental in developing opportunities for local people of all ages to get involved with sailing through successfully winning grant funding to purchase a range of training dinghies and sailing clothing, and a large Sport England Inspired Facilities grant to build a new boat shed. He has also been involved helping to run Herne Bay Sailing Club for much of the last 20 years and is a RYA Powerboat Instructor. He held the position of Commodore from 2008-11, has been Vice-Commodore since 2011 and also shares responsibility for overseeing the good condition of the fabric of the clubhouse. 

In addition, having spent most of his working career in London, David is the trustee of two charities in the City. The Sir John Cass’s Foundation is a 300 year old charity providing educational opportunities for disadvantaged young people, where David has been particularly involved in setting up an outdoor learning facility in the Brecon Beacons and working with the prison service to provide training and a career path for young offenders. His other charity, HQS Wellington, is a WW2 convoy escort moored at Temple Steps, which also works with young people, providing a hands-on opportunity to learn not only about the convoy system and the War in the Atlantic, but also world trade and an introduction to navigation and the career options available in the marine world.

David is on the right in the  photograph.

In a bid to coerce keen volunteers to help safety boat activities, a cunning plan was formulated to offer some race day assistance in order to build skills and confidence.

However, you know when you offer to mentor someone for their first time as safety boat lead and it turns into the busiest day you have ever had on the water with 5 boats to tow ashore and approx 25,000 capsizes...


Many thanks to Tony Smith for stepping forward to do an extra turn as Officer Of the Day so that everyone could enjoy racing. The conditions were brilliant and much fun was had by all involved.

On the prom winds felt light and the sea looked deceptively flat, but once out past the pole it was clear that there was at least a solid F3 from the SSW with some interesting gusts. I say clear, but with three people, two giant Volvo marks, one yellow pillar and buckets of ground tackle, the view was occasionally a little obscured.

The course was laid under Tony's direction and with 25 mins to spare before the race start, there was time to do a little more familiarisation with Humber. A few fast runs between different parts of the course to get a feel for the waves, then a bit of practice with close manoeuvring around the buoys to help judge wind and tide.

Soon the first race was under way and from the speed of the boats as they rounded SP1 and spinnakers started to pop up, we could see it was going to be an exciting afternoon just keeping track of all twelve!

Sam and Michael were literally flying as the 29er skimmed the waves with the two 2000s following at a good pace. Of the two, Laurie's boat was a little quieter, unable to match the excited shrieks from number 2041 which was almost blown over by a sudden gust as they approached the gybe mark, despite dumping a lot of power from the kite. I believe they decided to retire at the end of the first lap.

With Humber sitting just off the gybe mark we patiently waited for the approaching fleet of Lasers to show off their downwind skills, Colin S made it look effortless as he took the turn and dashed off East, and then the fun began.

One by one, at random points on the course, sails were being swapped for dagger boards. With Barry and I spotting, we had Chris zooming all over the place to check on people. As if that wasn't enough, we were also positioning ourselves to discourage personal water craft, and to motoring check on an errant water ski boat in the centre of the course that turned out to be dealing with a minor injury (and was very apologetic for their location!).

After a few more upsidedownings, we saw the RS600 heading to the beach near Coastwatch and tip over in the shallows. A check with the RO confirmed that Steve was dropping his sails and walking the boat back to the club.

At some point it should be noted that one race finished and another one started, but from our perspective there was little impact on our workload, or the ongoing 'hands on' training

I think Chris and Barry both gained some good experience, recovering people and (boat) parts from the water, plus righting, rigging and towing a variety of boats and the general management of a safe sailing area.

Boats returned to shore:
Laser with broken tiller extension.
Laser with tired crew.
6ft plastic bathtub tender who had dropped anchor at the windward mark due to mechanical issues (very much like a no petrol sort of problem).
420 with tired crew who were fighting to get back up wind & tide.
Merlin Rocket with broken rudder.

Due to the number of other boats still capsizing on the course, we could not tow the Rocket in immediately, so we passed over a spare radio and lifted the crew off to allow the helm to continue practising his 'Seamanship Skills' and rudderless sailing while the race was finishing. It was a brave effort, but with the strength of the wind and speed the tide was running he would likely have made it to the beach somewhere near Minnis.

We returned to meet him again some distance ENE of the dolphin and made began the slow tow home after he had finished dropping his sails.

In all, a great afternoon of racing (although I have no idea who finished in what positions) and a great session for the PB team, and great feedback from the sailors we were supporting !

Ian M.

With a forecast for a sunny day and 8-10mph wind from the SW, all was looking promising for Saturday's Cadet session (as long as parents remembered to bring industrial quantities of sun cream!).

After a bit of boat prep and a short briefing, we soon had power boats in the water and were busy getting the young people afloat.

A Vision and a Wayfarer were launched so that the less experienced young people could get direct supervision from instructors, while four more-competent cadets headed out in single handers to be coached from the water.

This turned out to be trickier than we had hoped due to the wind dropping off rapidly, possibly due to a sea breeze working against the predicted wind, or perhaps someone had just knocked the weather dice over.

Whatever the reason, it made for some very challenging sailing to keep ahead of the fast running tide. At times boats would be moving quickly in good wind, but only 20 metres away others were becalmed and drifting backwards.

Frustrating conditions, but taken in good spirits by the cadets, and a good opportunity to build light wind skills.

When asked 'Which way is the wind coming from?' the only answer we could give was 'Look at your sail, the wind is different for everyone!'

Many thanks to Ben G, instructors and the cadet team for running the day.

Lastly, a special welcome/thanks/congratulations to Adrian P for power boat assistance with his spangly RYA Safety Boat qualification. We look forward to having you on board for more cadet sessions and especially for club week!

Ian M.