NEWS AND EVENTS BULLETIN JULY 2019
Dear Association Member,
Barbara and I were back last week having sailed Jiminy Cricket up to Suffolk to join the North Sea Rally on 5 to 7 July. It was the boats longest trip under our ownership and albeit with lots of light airs, I must say we were immensely impressed with the ease of distance cruising, and performance of the boat.
It was like sailing a 30ft plus boat, apart from the headroom! and I can understand now why it’s been such a popular long distance small boat. The Rally was a wonderful and enjoyable event with 11 boats some from distance including our popular Dutch member Rob Kolster who sailed Kleine Johanna over from Holland and fellow long distance attendees Mike and Diana Lindsey who sailed from Northumberland (round trip circa 500 plus miles). It was also good to see our first Affiliate member John Hooper in his CO 28 there. A full report will appear in the Winter Magazine, but in the meantime very many thanks to Peter Hooper from Burnham who put in a lot of work and undertook the local side of all Event organisation and co-ordination.
Another light airs Round the Island race for 2019. A most impressive and maybe a record 14 CO26 entries but sadly the weather beat all of us in both IRC and ISCRS, and no one recorded a finish. There were many retirements across the board of all entries and so we can only at this stage look forward to the 2020 race and hope for some constant breeze then.
The latest news on Association events is:
1. National Championships 7 and 8 September 2019
There has been something of a delay in entries opening and this has been beyond the Association’s control. I am assured that they will be open in the middle of the week. The Notice of Race is on the Royal Lymington Yacht Clubs website Click Here to go to the page. Entries are available here amd the NOR is available here. Royal Lym are looking forward to hosting us at our spiritual home for this year’s regatta.
I have been delighted to have heard this month that that we have Malcolm McKeag whom many of you will know as a top Race Officer looking after our racing.
The idea of the Championships remains as a fun and fellowship social event with the best racing we can provide catering for all with our usual class divisions of Class 1 (IRC), Class 2 (Class handicap with spis) and Class 3 (Class Handicap without spis) BUT this year everyone will start
together, sail the same course and have an overall fleet result on Class handicap in tandem and additional to your Class Result. Also there will be 3 races for all i.e. two on Saturday and one on Sunday, and these will be of a round the cans format. We have identified over the years that this suits the majority in our boats as opposed to very short windward / leeward races. I hope it’s clear, and should anyone have any questions then please do not hesitate to contact Mike.
Our main social gathering is the Championship Dinner on Saturday night at the Club. This is open not only to competitors but also any other Association members and guests and non racers will be most welcome. Dinner booking arrangements will be issued separately and soon. We are looking forward to a good entry this year.
2 Arrangements for the continuation of the South Coast Rally 14 and 15 September 2019
It was disappointing but inevitable with the forecast and actual Force 7 and 8 winds that we had to take the early decision to postpone the Rally last month. Most entrants were however delighted to attend at our first booked venue Marchwood YC by car etc., it was an excellent evening. Thanks to Bob Coates for the contact with his club at Marchwood.
The good and latest news is that we have a new date for cruising to and visiting Chichester Harbour and dinner at Itchenor Sailing Club. We hope that most of the original entrants will be joining and there is capacity for new entrants if you are interested. We will go straight to Chichester Harbour on 14 September, but if any boats from the west wish to overnight stop at Cowes on Friday 13th we can meet up then. Barbara and I will host an informal supper at home, (it’s quite close to Shepards Wharf Marina) for anyone visiting Cowes then.
If you didn’t take part last year it was a great weekend of CO 26 sailing and fellowship and we were well hosted at ISC for a convivial supper meeting.
An entry form is on the website here.
Thanks as always to Simon Jollands for all his work on this one.
3. Regional Events and Furtherance.
The lovely CO 26 company and fun at The North Sea Rally, and the dinner at Marchwood reminded me once again of all the benefits of meeting other members and owners. We are very keen to assist start ups of other regional events, and would welcome hearing about any ideas and demand for future social activities. If you know of other boats in your vicinity then maybe they are members or can be persuaded to become members. The successful North Sea Rally was a start up from scratch only 2 years ago, and was so enjoyable this year that those
entering have agreed a programme and regions with different members helping to organise them bi-annually for the next 7 years!! These things can happen.
If you live in an area and would like to meet other owners why not let us know, and we will see if we can help find a consensus for an initial supper meet up to start with. A suggestion was made as to anything for our Scottish owners last year, is there any demand out there we wonder?
4. Future diary dates:
- 27 to 31 August 2019 – Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club Annual Regatta
- 7 and 8 September 2019 – National Championships Royal Lymington Yacht Club
- 14 and 15 September 2019 – New Date for South Coast Cruise
- 23 November 2019 – Winter Dinner and AGM at Royal Lymington Yacht Club