Tag Archives: sailing

Olympic Sailing: Point – Counter-Point

The Irish Times carried an editorial by Jonathan Liew in which he found the Olympic Games had grown to include many sports, and arguably, too many.

So Liew initiated a review, and found many negatives about Sailing, calling it to be “a continuing sop to super-rich men who founded the Games and still just really love yachts, basically inaccessible to most of the countries in the world, even the ones with a viable coastline.”

There was a lot of disagreement with his view… here’s what Sheila Armstrong had to say:
I learned to sail off the coast of Sligo in a three-metre Mirror dinghy built by my father sometime in the early 1990s. So did my siblings, my cousins, and my nieces and nephews. The boat is called Sideshow Bob, and it has been holed, capsized and repaired so many times that the Ship of Theseus could take notes. We travelled to competitions around Ireland and even made it abroad a few times in these Mirror dinghies. As adults, some of us graduated to larger boats and some drifted away, but we can all still tie a damn good knot. –
Full report

Sailing training for beginners

We have run a cadet sailing training for beginners with great success, and we are about to begin an adult training session. The cadet sessions have been run on Sunday mornings for 6 weeks and all cadets have been successful in completing the level 1 sailing.
Soon we are about to start a 2 day course for adults, where they will be given a full day instructions on how to start with sailing, getting into boats and get hands on coaching. We have some spaces for anyone interested in giving sailing a go.
The cost of the course is £60.00 pp, plus a club membership at 50% of the cost. With the membership you can keep sailing after you have completed the course in any of the club boats. The hire price for the club boats is also removed for the rest of the year, therefore there is no reason to not practice after the course.

Tyr sailing and training weekend

During last weekend we had 2 boats out for a ‘try sailing’ where both enjoyed their time on the water. One was so keen that he came back the next day as a member to take part in the training.

On Sunday we had some members out for a second training day, 2 took to the water in a wanderer under instructions from Malcolm, while the other 2 braved it out solo and used the club laser. With the safety boat between them and giving instructions or support they managed to stay upright, sail up, down and from side to side on the loch. Some slight mishaps and connecting with the boom did not stop them going back out after a tea break.

Gus enjoyed it so much that he decided to join in the race, making it a firefly, a wanderer and 2 lasers. Course set to X (Z), K, C and F to port before coming back to A to starboard. 3 laps, where we had Jack in a topper joining in to get some experience sailing a course.

All in all a good weekend, Saturday the skiff was out in Montrose. Maybe we can get a few words on that with the large amount of photos that are taken on that day and place them online and in the news letter.

Race report

Race report Sunday 09/06

Time: 14:00:00
OOD: Dennis Burgin
Wind direction and speed:West, 15-18
Handicap race, course: E – starboard,D – starboard,C – starboard,G – port,K -port,A – port

Sunday was a bright and breezy day, ideal for a day on the Loch. Four boats took to the water: Malcolm Heron in his Lazer, David Smith in his Firefly, Sebastian Kimber with crew Martha Treffrey in a Feva and Jonathan Treffrey in Topper.
At the start, Malcolm was first to cross the line followed closely by David. Sebastian was a few seconds behind with Jonathan eventually crossing the line to join the race. The boats proceeded around the course in that order with no changes of position and with increasing distance between each one despite the attempts of some crews to give others an advantage. Sebastian and Martha used the gennaker at every opportunity and in their enthusiasm, they overshot D mark and had to go back, David got tangled up at K and Jonathan mistook the G mark for Z and sailed off in the wrong direction. Malcolm sailed flawlessly to a convincing win. Malcolm and David completed 3 laps with the other two boats finishing 2.

Results:
1st Malcolm Heron
2nd David Smith
3rd Sebastian Kimber / Martha Treffrey
4th Jonathan Treffrey

Time: 15:20:00
Handicap race, course: E – starboard,D – starboard,C – starboard,G – port,K -port

The second race was very similar to the first but with everyone making a much better start. There were fewer mistakes being made, the first race practice paying off. Jonathan sailed the correct course and the Feva crew seemed to have better sail control. The wind reduced for the second half of the race making it impossible for David to reduce Malcolm’s lead and the results were the same as the first race but with the fleet staying a little closer together.

1st Malcolm Heron
2nd David Smith
3rd Sebastian Kimber / Martha Treffrey
4th Jonathan Treffrey

A present for you

Want to improve your sailing tactics, while staying on dry land? Why not play a sailing game. The following game can be found on the Google Play site, I am sure that you can also find it on the apple site. 

From the app:
Race intense regattas in real time against sailors from all around the world!

Your fleet of inshore yachts includes ultra-fast foiling catamarans, dinghies or cutting-edge monohulls. The short format of racing is identical to the one used for real life competitions, such as the America’s Cup or the Star Sailors League, with a unique virtual umpire who applies the official rules of sailing.

Click the button below to go to the app download site.