Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 09:45PM Hamilton Yacht Club Special Event
Winners are Grinners Book Launch
Friday, December 12th at 1730hrs
Jimmy, family, and friends put on a great show. Sales of the book were healthy and Jimmy was kept busy signing the inside covers. As you can see it was thirsty work. His book is available via the website below.
http://www.jimmygilpin.co.nz/
Monday, November 3, 2014 at 01:28AM An 8-12 knot breeze (mostly) from the West sped 30 or so skippers around the lake in a pretty standard course for the opening A Series and Club Champ races.
Across all fleets, the racing was close and generally only 1-2 points separated the handicap placings. This is particularly true of the Laser fleet, only 2 points separated the 1st through 4th place getters. In the Zephyr fleet, Rob Ebert dominated taking both guns. The net result may have been different for the Zephyrs if one sailor didn’t swim part of the first race. Must be the boat. In the Starling fleet Julia and Annie shared the handicap honours with Charlotte and Lucia close behind. In the Opti Green fleet, Serena Dan Hertog seems to be the form Skipper. It was pleasing to see a couple of additional Opti Green sailors and I’m hopeful this group will be joined by further sailors from the Learn to Sail program soon.
From the results, minor handicap adjustments have been made for coming events. These will be reassessed throughout the season. Any correspondence about handicaps should be made with the Racing Secretary and be accompanied by the required cash or cheque payment (just kidding!).
Saturday, October 25, 2014 at 03:26AM My thanks to those keen sailors that lined up for the third race. The promised Sou'wester never showed up and we were left with a pathetic SSE trading places with an underwhelming WSW, and patches of nothing. A couple of the older members tried to trick the wind gods into action. John Elliott went ashore and dropped the sail of his 3.7, and Jim Brokenshire made an announcement over the loudspeakers at 1600hr to say that the bar was open. Sadly the wind gods were not taken in by these ploys and they waited till 1800hr before realeasing a pleasantly consistent Sou'wester across the lake. The laws of averages say we must get a decent wind sometime soon (they also say that forecasting is an inexact science).
Wednesday, October 22, 2014 at 04:26AM A shade more wind than the Icebreaker kept the boats moving and the rain was not all that cold, but still not what one would call champagne sailing conditions. Results from these 2 points races are posted on the results page of the website. Though there are no cups for the Points Series all these races are counted as part of the Aggregate Series.
The first Sprint Series is coming up this weekend. I will be the Race Officer for the afternoon and I am going to try out a couple of small changes to the standard racing rules. I am hoping to minimise the delays between starts by having only 2 minutes between each fleet starting. Also there will be no penalty for hitting a mark (pity this didn't apply last weekend, I managed to hit a mark, then hit it again while completing my 360 for the first offense). The races will be short and it is quite possible we will squeeze in 5 races.
I would suggest that nudging a mark is ok but piling into a mark risks getting your centreboard or rudder hooked around the mark anchor rope. Given that a goodly wind is forecast for Saturday this hooking up manoeuvre is highly likely to result in both capsize and Dorsal Fin nomination. Roll on champagne sailing conditions I say and things are looking up for Saturday in that regard - WSW 10-15kt (18 - 27km/hr for the land locked).
Saturday, October 11, 2014 at 06:16PM Thank you to all the volunteers who turned out for the working bee. Some of us went to the extreme of spraying the roof or cleaning the gutters in order to avoid the dreaded oven but all the jobs on Fraser's list were dealt to. Wind wise spring sprung a surprise in the form of light and variable winds. Some sailors were clearly struggling to find their inner peace as windless holes enveloped them. Other sailors, like our esteemed commodore, had their last leg 'dial a friend call' for wind answered, carving up the fleet from last to second place finish. The highlight of the day was the special effort made by one Zephyr skipper to get his name on the Dorsal Fin nominee list early in the season.