Dart 15 Forums

Dave wrote:

?

Mr Jones replied:

Yes. It's raining!

Mr Jones replied:

The weather forecast for Cardigan Bay, provided by AccuWeather is force 1 today. Tommorrow, the last day, the forecast is force 0, with gusts of.....er.....0 miles an hour.

Wish you were here. With this sort of wind, the leaders are never far out of sight!

Mr Jones.

Dave replied:

Makes work sound almost bearable

George replied:

Although the wind in the 1st race was light, it quickly filled in and the other 6 races were held in absolutely perfect conditions from force 2-4 (ask those who capsized!). There was about 5 minutes of rain over the whole championships and yesterday we finished with beautiful sunshine, force 4 with beautiful scenery in the background. The club was very well organised, with superb food and facilities, loads of space to set the boats up, excellent launching and great courses. Overall one of the best nationals venues we have ever had.

So why don't you guys join in to see for yourself next time rather than speculating on the chat page with inaccurate weather information

Dave replied:

I was hoping for results, not an argument about the weather

George (another one!) replied:

Dave,

The Nationals were on Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th August inclusive - as announced. Your first Chat entry was timed at Friday 19th at 8.31am!

I don't think it reasonable to expect someone at the Nationals to have the equipment with them, the time, the inclination and the energy to get on line and check the Chat Pages to answer enquiries on interim progress, let alone update the website with interim results!

Clearly, there are results, but someone has to write reports (particularly to meet the Yachs and Yachting deadlines or they may NEVER appear in that journal or its website) and do all the necessary to get the reports and results onto the Sprint 15 website and into the next NEWSPRINT. This is all done by volunteers. If it comes a little late by your standards, perhaps you might volunteer to do it all next time, including interim up to the minute race results being available online?

I guess we will see the first report and "top results" on the Yachts and Yachting website in the middle of this week.

I endorse the other George's comments about Pwllheli having been an ace place to go for this year's Nationals. For those who thought it too far away, it's no further to go to than Pentewan for South Easterners, nearer for those further north!

George

Gordon replied:

I must admit that I wasn't too enthusiastic about the 'long trip' to Pwllheli, but just shows how wrong you can be! The sailing club and facilities were top notch , the racing was outstanding and superbly organised, and the long journey actually took me one hour less than when I last went to Pentewan. Thanks to every one who put in an effort to make it happen and to all those competitors who didn't let their doubts get in the way.
It's a top venue for a Nationals.

Dave replied:

I'd better not ask about the new prototype then - George might expect me to volunteer to manufacture it at this rate

A simple "Fun events were great fun. Racing going well, good wind so far, close racing" would have sufficed from anybody who'd been down spectating for a day

A thread is a living thing, to which users can add when and where they want. It doesn't end the day it started.
I thought a thread titled "news from Pwllheli" would have been useful.

Wish I'd never shown any interest

George replied:

Dave,

I think the issue wasn't your interest, but the slight negativity in the earlier thread about being at work being better than being at the nationals. We are just frustrated that we had a relatively low attendance at a fantastic venue that is closer for almost everybody than some others that had better attendances, and that we would rather people took the plunge and came along if they could rather than discuss what a miserable time we must all be having

Results (will very soon be on Y & Y website):

1st George Carter
2nd Steve Hanby
3rd Bob Carter

1st Over 50 - Steve Hanby
1st over 60 - Chris Black
1st 2-up - The Littlejohns
Team Prize: Grafham

Race winners:
Race 1 - Paul Smith
Race 2/3/4/5 - George Carter
Race 6 - Steve Hanby
Race 7 - George Carter

Most applauded capsize - Bob Carter
Loudest competitor - Erling Holberg
Best Dancers - Shanklin Sailing Club

stuart replied:

Hi all many thanks for great week the club and beach were great 3 mile beach in mid August and no people in the way we went up the coast and it was packed.The sailing was fantastic on the second day my crew and I did the entire half mile reach in a shower of sea spray we only saw the boy when we got within 20ft of the boy,the crew had a big grin on his face as we had gone from last to fourth from last.So from us at the back of the fleet thanks for a great week.

Andrew Hannah replied:

I am one of those who failed to attend. I voted against it at Whitstable last year. I had never been to Pwillieh, so I didn't know how good it was. Now that we have some feedback, we should perhaps give it another go.

Did this year's competitors notice any local Dart 15s there? And what is their general club racing programme like? By all accounts, the place seems ideal for a recognised Dart 15 fleet.

I'm sorry if I'm not very well acquainted with the Welsh fleets. But, as I say, I have never sailed there.

Andrew, TBYC.

George (not the 1st!) replied:

is mainly a yacht club rather than a dinghy/beach cat club. The dinghy park is smaller than the enormous visitors' boat park, and seemed to contain mostly dinghies, just the one Dart 15 and a few other cats, with spaces for quite a few more dinghies. There are hundreds of yachts and motor boats moored in the marina behind the clubhouse, most of which probably are taken off their moorings at best a few times a year. The Vice-Commodore (why can't I remember names!) said there was a core of enthusiastic yachties who enjoy trips/races across to Ireland.

On Saturday (or was it Friday?) we came ashore as the Club was running a race for 4 youngsters in Toppers, but saw no other dinghy/beach cat sailing. I didn't look seriously at the Club Noticeboard - there were results sheets posted and maybe they race Sundays.

But they know how to cater for visitors with dinghies/beach cats. I certainly want to go back in a future year for Nationals. The week before us they had c250 Optimists plus their supporting parents - the BBQ catered for over 740 people, so no problem if we get the attendance the venue deserves - we certainly can get 80/90 of us into the visitors' boatpark, many more if we do the sensible thing and park our D15s on our trailers in lines to utilise the space.

It's a shame you voted against Pwllheli a year ago, and a greater shame you didn't come.

Clive Wood replied:

I have been a member at Pwhelli for about 4 years now and keep my boat (1388) on the dinghy park at the club. I only get to sail very occasionally and in fact not at all in the past 2 years mores's the pity.
The Club organisation and facilities are first class although the emphasis is perhaps more on the "yachties" than the dinghy or small boat sailers. There are some club Wayfarers and quite regular training for youngsters on Toppers which I think belong to the club.
There is one other Dart/Sprint 15 kept on the dinghy park but I've only seen it out sailing once, probably as many times as they've seen me!!
I think that most of the small boats kept at the club belong to visitors/holidaymakers rather than locals which perhaps explains why there is no regular weekend racing/sailing.
One regular event though in previous years has been a catamaran weekend with a long race around the islands off Abersoch. This event has not been run for a year or so but would have been great fun run as a handicap event.
So it's a great club and I'm glad everyone who attended was impressed with the sailing and the club facilities. I'm just sorry that I don't live local to the club and therefore get to sail so rarely oh and by the way....membership fees are ?75 annually and no extra charge for the dinghy park!!

Andrew Hannah replied:

Thank you Clive and George the whatever(!), for being so candid. It seems a paradox that the capability to hold championships and the size of the locals fleets are in inverse proportion to each other.

The reason I enquired was because I wanted to know how other clubs cope with a huge number of visitors. At Thorpe Bay in Southend, we are filled to capacity with local sailors. We are a very successful club with good turnouts for racing and day sailing. The drawback is that we struggle to cope with a large influx of visitors.

I understand Weymouth is similar to Pwillhli, ie has a rather disappointing club programme. But seemingly able to hold olympic regattas.

At Thorpe Bay, we now turn asside requests to hold OMs for any cadet classes, eg oppies, 420s etc. This is partly because we are unable to cope with the armada of support boats and their trailers.

Finally, we have just 4 showerheads in the dressing room. If we had 250 optimist sailors coming off the water at say 6pm, we could have a problem. It would probably be 4am before everybody was showered, assuming 10 minutes each!

Regards to all,

Andrew, class capt., TBYC.