Slightly different results style this week, I’ve managed to get our results software to publish the results directly in to a format I can post here:-

This week saw some very difficult conditions for our young sailors. There was a stiff breeze whilst they were rigging their boats, but once the race had started the wind rapidly increased. Almost all of them capsized at some point or another particularly on the way in after the race, but hopefully much was learnt.

The table after week 2, has some clear movement, but don’t forget next week will see each competitor’s worst score discarded:-

Next week we will move on from plain triangle courses, to tackle an olympic style triangle/sausage course.

After last weeks racing had to be cancelled due to the poor weather, we had a great evening of racing this week. Sorry forgot my camera, so no photos. Here’s the results:-

The first sailing lesson of 2012 was a success last night as our training centre took 6 new sailors out on the water. A number of last years pupils also returned to continue their training. The weather couldn’t have been more ideal - warm and sunny, with a light breeze, ideal for first timers and the more experienced having their first go with spinakkers.

Here is a wonderful extract from a sailing blog about Brian & Sue on Blue Bear.

“10:19S 138:45W
Hiva Oa just behind us now, en route to Fatu Hiva 40miles or so south east - we have to be in Papeetee by early April and we gotta check out the Tuamotus.

Hiva oa is majestic, tall to over 3000ft. Some of the cliff formations on the southern coast appear to be a series of human-like faces - long chiselled noses and chins, eyes closed, dormant yet powerful. Remarkably similar in design to -tho much bigger than- those statues on Easter Island. I spect the Easter island statues were carved to remind them of home here in Marquesas, or to keep up with the Jones’s. Not bad eh? - one of the world’s most enduring mysteries solved inside the first two paragraphs.

Far more importantly - we had more cockpit chats with neighbours Brian and Sue, of Blue Bear. They are relatively new to long distance sailing , though long experienced as travellers to the med, Ukraine, New Zealand and more .

With Blue Bear based in Cardiff in late summer 2010, they got itchy feet and aired the idea of heading south in their local pub. One friend warned them that they ought to be careful making such rash plans - they’d feel compelled to go - or least lose face when they had lots of plans but were still in Cardiff. But by next day they’d stocked up at Aldi and set off - next thing they’re in Falmouth, find a weather window through Biscay, Portugal is still cold so on they go to Canaries. Without having said goodbyes at all, family flew to Canaries to stay with them - a total of 11 of them sleeping on the boat. But after a happy fortnight or so, their family returning to the UK was upsetting - too many memories of happy times around the marina and the beach where they’d played with the kids and grandkids - so they went to the cape verdes and Senegal. How long was it between the family leaving to go back to the UK- and brian and sue deciding to go? Two hours. They don’t do “agonising” on Blue Bear. Senegal and transat follows, completely the wrong time of year, but all ok - Caribbean via Aruba, Panama and then the Epic Trip.

Oh yes, and the 3900 mile Epic Trip from Panama - Marquesas was over 92 days, not 85 as I wrote previously - it was 13 weeks and 2 days. Most sailors know the exact number of days it took them to cross an ocean. They log the number in their heads and save for re-telling in later boaty discussions as their own very precious and memorable vital statisics “Our transat was in 2005 and took 21 days” or suchlike. In a somewhat different league - Brian had initially agreed that it must have been 12 weeks at ea - when it was actually over 13 weeks! So they didn’t count every day, nor even every week.

Boatfixing jobs as always, Blue Bear is already somewhat less goose-barnacled - I loaned them a scraper. Everyone in the anchorage wants to meet the heroes - inviting them round for dinner and drinks, helping them out with tools and charts. One boat gave them an old copy of Charlie’s Charts - an essential pilot book for the islands, but Brian isn’t much enthused - he’s planning to be in New Zealand in a month or two maximum, so he gives me the pilot book and i give him a lot of drinks, a 3kg bag of rice and tellim to keep the barnacle scraper. Of any pilot book so far, I’d say Charlie’s Charts is a must.

Lots of lovely Welsh-accenty stories from Brian. I liked the saga of the wine. They got through two wineboxes, but a few weeks out from Panama, Brian is absolutely convinced that he bought three. So where’s the other winebox? He unpacks the boat, looking for it. He asks Sue if she’s sneakily drunk it all on night watch, but she very firm that no, she hasn’t. Hm. Brian calms down, puts everything away…but, by about a week later he again convinces himself that the elusive 3rd wine box just MUST be on the boat, mustn’t it? And Sue hasn’t drunk it, right? So he unpacks all the lockers again. Apparently this happened several times.

One of the many remarkable aspects of their voyage is their nonchalance at starting the trip itself from Cardiff. No drama, no huge angst, they just shopped and shipped out. The boat was essentially ready- as many are, really. Just a few bits and pieces to pick up along the way. No years of lists and planning and so on - all you need is a big box of Get Up And Go.

We heard from their yacht club in Cardiff that Brian and Sue won the Joshua Slocum award last year, for their ocean adventures. So the problem for the c’tee is - what do they do this year? Perhaps they should give Joshua Slocum the “Blue Bear Award”.

We had a superb turnout for the Boxing Day +1 Race, with 25 boats taking part including three dinghies. The race was won by the J109 Jack Hammer, and the fastest bilge keeler was Moontide, Hunter Horizon 30. Well done to all.

Full race results:-

Story details from Wales On Line:

A FAMOUS boat built more than 70 years ago by one of Cardiff’s last ship-building firms is to set sail again following a major refurbishment.

The Coresande was one of the elite racing yachts of its day, and for many years was unbeatable in flagship races in the Bristol Channel.

Construction on it started in 1935 when the owner of the Cardiff Boat Building and Slipways company decided he wanted a yacht.

Now its current owner Tony Burris, 69, from Roath Park, Cardiff, will relaunch the wooden vessel after he spent the last 11 months on a painstaking renovation project.

The hull has been repaired, engine dismantled and rebuilt, and it has been given a lick of paint – all to make it seaworthy.

Mr Burris, who has owned the Coresande since 1979, will be re-launching the boat tomorrow at Cardiff Yacht Club – where he carried out the work.

He said he will be glad to see a boat with a strong Cardiff heritage back on the waters of the city’s bay.

He added: “I’m expecting it to be launched on Saturday morning and not to leak or sink.

“It was built by Cardiff Boat Building – a well-established Cardiff firm which only recently closed.

“Sid Wright and his two sons were the main artisans and he decided to build this yacht for his own use.”

When the boat was finally finished in 1939, war broke out meaning it was idle until 1945.

But when it launched it quickly earned a reputation after winning the prestigious Cock of the Channel race in Bristol five times.

“Yachting was one of the sports of kings,” Mr Burris said.

“It was very much the admired new boy on the street and was very attractive.”

Mr Burris – who has sailed across the Atlantic – bought Coresande to upsize, having survived the French Fastnet disaster where 15 people died in a 23ft boat.

When the boat re-launches it must be on the water for around a week before it is fit to sail.

And Mr Burris, who has sailed to Ireland, France and Spain, says he might take a brief holiday to celebrate the Coresande’s return.

He said: “I’m still hoping to squeeze a late season holiday in so I might take it down to Lundy.

“All boats cost money but, if anything, looking after a boat is more about effort than money.

“There’s a great treasure to be had from successfully keeping a boat as old as this.”

Be aware that there will be some road closures in Cardiff on 16 October due to the Cardiff Half Marathon.  The link flyover will be closed from 08:30 to 12:00.

See link below for full details.

The club web site has been updated with some old photos scanned in from prints. Most are from the time that the old club house slipway was being built, but there are a few of the current club house slipway construction.

We are still looking for old photos, so if you have any and you wouldn’t mind the club using them, it would be great to scan them in and use them on the web site. Probably the best way would be to hand into the bar and I will do my best to return them safely as soon as I can.

Photo updated pages here at http://www.cardiffyachtclub.org/oldphotos1.html and http://www.cardiffyachtclub.org/oldphotos2.html .

Thanks to all those who have contributed so far.

The club cruise to Bristol on 10th-11th September saw two boats (Bright Flyer and Chausey) complete the Avon Challenge, sailing from Cardiff to the Clifton suspension bridge without using their engines at all. Two other boats (Volition and Valkyrie Myth) came very, very close to completing the challenge, both being forced to start their engine when in sight of the bridge.

The challenge set was to sail from Cardiff (any point once the sails were raised within 2 miles of the barrage) to the Clifton Suspension bridge purely using sail power. There were 5 Blue book points awarded for achieving this, on top of the 2 points for taking part in a club cruise.

Congratulations to Dave Howells and his crew for sailing Gem to victory in this year’s 50 miler. The race was run between the Penarth Yacht Club start line and the Copperas Buoy, just off Combe Martin on the North Devon coast.

The race is an honesty race where participants choose their own start time to make the best use of the tide for their boat, and record their overall time. This time is then adjusted by their handicap number to give a corrected time.

All the race entrants started with strong winds, but by the end of the race had been almost becalmed. Of the 5 boats that entered, 3 had to retired as the wind died.

See the full results below:-

Hopefully next years race will see more vessels finish.

On 14th August CYC was host to the Classic Motor Boat Association’s AGM and annual meet. The CMBA held races and competitions at our club.

The first race of the new Junior Series took place this evening. The wind was very light, frequently dying completely.

Whilst being towed in after the race some competitors seemed to be exhausted by their competitive efforts!

We’ve got some recent video footage of the Club’s young racing stars of the future, again taken on an evening of very light winds, during their RYA Youth Stage 3 course at the club, see:-

Josh  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AkwQC8EFUc&feature=related   

Evie 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m0uLXNKFOo&feature=related  

Aidan  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfy2jRQBY_I&feature=related

Frankie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4zxnMY44UY&feature=related

Gethin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4zxnMY44UY&feature=related

Iwan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI98z89gotk&feature=related

The club’s RYA training centre has just completed the latest series of dinghy courses. RYA youth dinghy stage 1 and 3 training has been carried out at the club every Tuesday evening for the past six weeks.

Those who passed the stage 1 course will shortly be starting their stage 2 training, whilst those who achieved stage 3 will be commencing race training in preparation for the new junior dinghy Summer race series.

Pictured are:-

Graham Elder (Instructor), Aiden, Josh, Will Colles (Senior Instructor)
Ieuan, Evie, Will, Ethan,
Gethin, Frankie and Popi.

If interesting in completing any RYA training at the club, please contact Dave Bevan at the club or email him, training@cardiffyachtclub.org for further info.  

Both adult and youth RYA dinghy courses are available, as well as RYA Powerboat level 2 and Safetyboat courses. Navigational theory courses are planned for the Winter months.