Another unexpectedly windy afternoon with gusts over 25 knots in the latter part of today’s race made for exciting sailing. I was about to say “Can we please have a few not so windy days to give time for crew members to get familiar with which rope does what”, but that would sound a little hypocritical given my previous writings about how conditions for sailing are rarely perfect and that sailing helps us adapt to changing conditions. Still, I am sure you will forgive me for wishing for calmer weather on sailing days.
Saturday morning when I was in the process of going through the complexities of getting a TY on the water, I found myself envying the single hander dinghy and cat sailors. How easy it seemed for them to rig and unrig their small boat. Whether it’s the decision to sail on the day, to start and finish a race, or when to tack or jibe, the only person you usually have to consider is yourself. Rounding up enough crew is never issue either.
This sounded very attractive to me. Then I reflected on what single handed sailors can miss out on. You can miss out on being able to share great sailing experiences “in the moment”, especially when it’s with new people you are introducing to sailing and the sailing club. Being aboard a boat with other crew members gives you time to “break the ice” and uncover interesting things about their life, their families and their aspirations. You get time to discover the special abilities those people possess and bring to the crew skill mix. In many little ways those personal traits people bring aboard make a day’s sailing that much better. Single handed sailors miss out on being a part of developing a good team and opportunities to share those special moments with them when it all comes together in a smooth or cunning manoeuvre. For the present then I will stick to a trailer sailor and all that getting it from the garage to the water entails.
Although it’s nothing new, the trailer yacht fleet is making an effort to accommodate new people to sailing, particularly parents of junior sailors for the Saturday afternoon race. PKSC is known for its hospitality and it is in all of our interests to encourage new members participation in PKSC sailing events. Today Wayne McKinnon took on Pier and Daniel, parents of a couple of our junior sailors, out as crew aboard Serenity. Could TY skippers please indicate to me on the day if you can oblige so I can organise a ride for them. They will no doubt positively add to your enjoyment on and off the water
Frou Frou welcomed back Jess and Alan for number 2 race of their hopefully long sailing careers. This time we had Jess on the bow and Alan in the middle. It meant a quick learning curve for tacking and spinnaker handling in windy conditions. They both did exceptionally will I might add.
After a considerable absence we welcomed back Momentum and Serenity to our Saturday race program. Momentum was flaunting her new beautifully constructed centre board after her old one catastrophically failed at the end of last year’s sailing season. Momentums new board really looks the part and we wished her a successful passage around today’s course. Serenity had some mast rebuilding work done and was sporting her new stays today. Likewise we were hoping her mast stays up for today’s race, and many more to come. Obviously our collective good wishes for the success of both boats and crew worked because they started and finished the race in very respectably.
Gear failure seems to be a component of the start to this sailing season for TY’s. After having to retire from last week’s race because of a broken gooseneck Rosstered Off was today wearing a new shiny gooseneck. Frou Frou was back fully restored with an equally new and shiny mainsheet traveller and track, a consequence of the old one disintegrating in the lead up to the start of a race a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully we would all survive the Saturday afternoon race intact.
Following significant and wide ranging consultation undertaken in the TY rigging area it was decided to run the abandoned Championship one race to today.
A big thanks to the Porters Rob, Bob, and Josh, today’s duty crew, for looking after us on the water they did a great job setting the course and rendering assistance to upturned boats.
Results for Championship 1.
Position Boat Name Time in minutes CBH (PBH)
First Rosstered Off 73.95 (74.39)
Second Frou Frou 76.20 (76.91)
Third Momentum 76.25 (74.01)
Forth Serenity 77.97 (72.17)
Just a reminder that there is no scheduled race for TY’s next weekend but we are needed to assist with the flying 11 States. I hope you can spend some of your weekend helping out.
Finally don’t forget the TY Stay-cation 4 December
The end Trev.