Opening regatta

The forecast for the Opening Regatta on Sunday 23rd was not good, with suggestions of a strong Northerly, with gusts of force 5 increasing to force 6 in the afternoon. The wind on the inch was indeed Northerly, though on the loch itself the steadiest direction was Easterly. A course of C, E, X, A was initially set by the race officer, but after boats were on the water, and conditions observed, the course was reversed to X, E, C, A. This proved to be the correct move.

An excellent 11 boats were on the water. 5 laser radials, 4 fireflies (3 from Aberdeen University), a solo, and a Wanderer. This made the starts exciting, with much jockeying for position and cries of ‘starboard!’ as everyone tried to get the best start.

For the first race that person was Helen Brown (laser radial) followed by David Smith (firefly) and Malcolm Heron (laser radial) who rounded the first mark in that order.  The first unplanned swim, by Jamie Brown (laser radial), happened before the first mark, but he quickly recovered and didn’t trouble the rescue boat (ably manned by Sebastian Kimber). The extremely variable breeze, both in direction and strength, caused much pain to the sailors, eventually being the undoing of David in his firefly. He capsized after rounding E mark and his mast stuck in the mud in the shallow water, resulting in his retiral from the race.  The remainder of the fleet had a very close fought race, with only 20 seconds, on corrected time, between the first 5 boats.
1st Helen
2nd Malcolm
3rd Tony Walker and Bill Myles (Wanderer)
4th Jill Reid (firefly AUSC)
5th Becci Oosterhoorn (laser radial)

The wind abated slightly for the second race so was initially less exciting at first. The fleet was joined by Connor Hyndland and his daughter Charlotte, who quickly rigged a club Feva, just in time for the start.  Mark Kimber (laser radial) was first round the first mark, followed by the Wanderer, then Helen. The down wind section to E saw several casualties, all of whom recovered without assistance. At C mark, Helen took the lead, which she later lost to Malcolm. It was another very close race, with 5 seconds, on corrected time, between the first 5 boats.
1st Malcolm
2nd Stuart Dallas (firefly AUSC)
3rd Jamie
4th Mark

As the first two races were very hard work, the third race was shorter – 2 laps of the course instead of 3. Helen made an excellent start, less than a minute after capsizing behind the line. There were more capsizes (mostly ‘dry’) as tired sailors found the conditions demanding for tired bodies, and everyone was very glad to come ashore at the end of the race.
1st Helen
2nd Malcolm
3rd Mark
4th Jamie

End result overall:
1st, and winner of the Inch Cup Helen Brown (laser radial)
2nd Malcolm Heron (Laser Radial)
3= Mark Kimber and Jamie Brown (laser radial)

Opening regatta and invite from the skiffies

Hi all,

The skiffies would like to invite you to a social on Sunday 30th April from 4pm until around 7pm. It’s an opportunity for the whole club to get together. The plan is for the club to order in pizza and you can BYOB.

If you’d like to come along please message Sarah with your name(s) or reply by email. We hope to see you there ??‍♀️

Opening Regatta (Sunday 23 April):

The briefing for the opening regatta is at 10:45 with the first gun at 11:00 with a target of 3 races (minimum). Anyone welcome, if there are (new) members that would like to offer themselves as crew please let us know and we will try to get you into a boat.

We will be looking for some bakes to be available, please let us now if you can provide some (with a note of the main ingredients for any allergies)

The commodore
Mark Kimber

Training day

This Sunday (16 April) we have a training day for beginners and anyone that would like a refresher. The syllabus for this first session will be focusing around the initial introduction to sailing with teaching focused on rigging and sailing (with a competent helm/crew) double-hander boats. The plan will be to use the club Wanderer, Feva’s or members’ own double-hander boats.

Work party

A very big thank you to all our spring cleaners and DIYers.

A great turnout from sailor and skiffies and real progress has been made into preparing the club for the coming season. Deep cleans in all areas, showers fixed, boiler started, sign posts placed, mesh on pontoon sorted, litter picked (Nice one Jack), chains relayed, Sailing marks placed and trolleys sorted (no comments about me being off mine, I know it already??).

Thank you everyone that came down today, don’t worry if you couldn’t make it today – there’s still stuff to do.

So, tomorrow, skiffies have a couple of sessions planned and the sailors will be returning the boats from the Tattie shed. The plan for the sailors will be to meet at the shed at 10am. I will be at the club at about 0930 to drop my boat off so I can tow some club boats from the shed.

See you tomorrow

And truly – Thanks again to all.

Website updated

Hi, if you look closer at the options on the web site you might notice that there have been a few updates. We are still working on adding more information specifically about the new skiff. If you would like to see information displayed on the website, please contact us. (if you find that something is not working as expected, drop us an email)

Skiff sessions in the new year

If you haven’t been to the club recently, you might not be aware that the skiff rowing sessions are back after the ice on the loch has disappeared. Here are some photos from a recent session.

If you would like to take part, try it out or want to have a chat with some of the rowers contact the club to find out when the next session is.