Datchet sept 19-20th

The NOR's are on their website. I have contacted Tug's and it's fine for us non Datchet sailors to participate in what will be their Club Championships. However, unlike their members visitors will have to pay a day rate for floating on their pond but this wouldn't be too much. The Club is putting on entertainment on Sat night including a meal and Band (£20 p/p I think). Tugs suggested that it would be a good night to stay at the Club rather than going into the local Village and gay bar which I did make the mistake of entering on ONE occasion.
So Simon L, John A, John T, Jeff will you be able to make it. Wayne, Eric, Paul are you thinking of staying for a drink and meal at the Club Saturday night. If so could you liaise with Tugs so we might be able to book a F16 table for all of us, perhaps we might be able to confirm numbers by Friday?

Mark,

Very sorry, but I am a NO; will be working on Saturday and I'm saving up my brownie points for staying at Grafham all weekend.

Despite my earlier thought that I'd try and get to Datchet for this, the financial situation for me is becoming increasingly difficult. I cannot, in all good conscience, commit to the cost of a weekend at Datchet. Trust me, NOONE is more pissed off than me at this situation......

I'll be there racing, Saturday solo and Sunday with my son. I can't sail with him on the Saturday: he will be at the club doing his level 3 training. For the record I asked permission from race management in order to do so.

I'll be in early on Saturday, my son's course starts at 9:30, so I can help people rig if needed. However I won't be able to stay late Saturday evening as I will have to drive him back home.

Yep - Ann and I will be there. Looking forward to it!

Paul

bump

Sorry guys but won't be able to make this one. Family commitments that weekend.

Cheers and enjoy the weekend

John T

No wind and racing canceled on Saturday, patchy and irregular low wind on Sunday didn't make for an exciting event, but we had fun anyway. Only three races were run...

Results are posted here. I've extracted from them the real time F16 results and updated the 2009 UK TT Results

I thought the last race was very exciting!! Started on the 1 minute signal, went back below the line and started again but was marginally OCS, gybed, ducked a few cats gybed around the bow of the committee boat and started in last place. At the windward mark I had overtaken 3 F16's and was lying in 3rd and during the next beat I overtook Wayne, Dave and every other Cat to lead the race. At the leeward mark I dropped the kite and started the next lap, after about 50 metres Dave shouts over "we're finishing" so I gybe around hoisted the kite and beat him to the finish line which was set below the leeward mark. Once ashore I thanked Dave for his assistance and started to pack the boat away. It turns out that 5 F16's finished after 2 laps and 2 completed 3 laps hence my 6th position in race 3. Dave and I did have a little laugh about his so called assistance and I didn't buy him that Beer I had promised him earlier. Still it was a moral victory!
Well done Paul and Anne on wining the F16 09 TT and also Mike and Vikki who didn't quite win the Datchet Cat Club Championship but will be awarded the Trophy as I'm not a member

Its so irratating to have sailed really well ( well for me ) to be in a pretty solid 2nd place just behind 1st for the first lap only to see a boat sailing in a completely different direction than every other boat on the lake, out on the wire, totally blitzing everyone and beating you to the next mark by a country mile. Speaking to Mark afterwards even he admits " what a great lift I got on the second beat" yeah the speed differential was so great I was looking for the outboard motor. But then to brag about it as well now thats taking the proverbial.

Shame about the confusion at the end of race 3 which did alter quite a few results.

Oh by the way, I heard that a certain cat having gybed around the committee boat at speed T boned the safety boat parked on the other side of the committe boat, now who could that have been ?

I found the starts to be really hard this time. My son was helming during the races but he was not comfortable with the starts so I had the tiller for the start up to the first mark. The boat reactions with the jib on are completely different from usual, parking the boat was a challenge.

First race we were rubbish. We finished last due to my complete inability to read the wind: we ended up twice stopped in a dead wind zone with the boat not moving at all. Oh yeah, and my son has only started sailing in May, it was his third time on my cat, his second time helming and his first race ever, so I have excuses

Second race we did not finish last, but only because Paul and Wayne went past the layline by a mile on the second beat (the wind had turned slightly and I think they did not notice or something).

The third start was a complete chaos. First we had a general recall (good thing, black flag was flying and I was one of the boat over the line) and then on the restart I was in a rotten position with nowhere to go but OCS with a little more than a minute to go. So I crossed the line, got out of the penalty triangle quickly, jybed around the committee boat and started on the second row.

The end of the second lap was a disaster with a 49er coming up at full tilt under spi on starboard and a whole fleet of mixed boat scrambling to avoid them. Most of those boats were finishing but the cats (due to the general recall we were now late) but everyone passed the finish line anyway as there was no room to tack in between the flying fifteens. I knew we only had done two laps, but I saw cats going back ashore and we were hooted while passing the line, so I asked the committee if they had done a shorten course. They said no. I was pondering what to do when I noticed three boats not going ashore but sailing to the upwind mark. We crossed the finish line to get back on the course and gave chase. We finished last of the 3 laps finishers.

BTW Wayne, I owe you an apology: I made a mistake this morning and robbed you of two points in the TT. Sorry. I've corrected the TT results and it turns out we both finish with 21 points, ex-aequo for 3rd place!

Well, well, well. You are then freely admitting you passed the line at one minute under black flag? Then you must have been in the disqualification triangle then:

Both paul and I were taking the good wind we had found as far we could take it as any other boat near the mark was becalmed, trouble was the mark boats suddenly all powered up and guess what, we were now without wind, such was the day.

Throughout the day though the good sailors still found themselves at or near the front so there must be a sort of method in dealing with shifty winds. For all the wind troubles I still enjoyed the day as there were enough cats about to always have your own private race.

You might be right there!! but the little committee boat had so many flags flying it looked like our washing line on a Sunday morning. It still wouldn't have made that much difference though as over the water and in the real world I still won the first two races, blitzed the first two laps of race 3 and was leading during my third lap by a comfortable margin and still couldn't walk away with a prize as I'm not a Datchet Member. I'm not having ago all I have said is tongue in cheek but the published Results are what they are. If we started taking the rules into our own hands I might have won at Rutland and in so doing be the 09 TT Champ!

I love teasing you Mark. You're so quick on the uptake!

FYI, Paul told me there should be one discard for the TT results, so I've amended them accordingly. We're never going to hear the end of Mark's bragging as with the discard he jumps ahead of Paul and finishes first... And we are not longer ex-aequo with Wayne, he is now two points ahead of me.

Not to stand on the rules, but a General Recall doesn't cancel a black flag violation. I have quoted the remainder of the rule for you. The fact that you did start in the next start means that your DSQ is not excludable. Your restart was DSQ on its own rights as you say you were OCS again. You have treated this as the I flag.

The race committe didn't identify any of us. Good thing: at least half the fleet was OCS...
They did not display any number anywhere. Not even shouted them, they just restarted us. So all of us slackers were in the clear.

As for the restart I knowingly passed the line *before* the one minute hoot, and I was out of the DSQ triangle, about to jybe around the committee boat when the one minute warning sounded.

The way I see it I was in the clear. I guess a general recall on a black flag is not something I'm too familiar with, I've never seen or done that before...

Hi Bob
You've saved me some homework as I was wondering about last Sundays situation. At the time there were five different Class starts so like I said earlier the committee boat looked like a washing line with pink, orange, yellow (not the I flag, I double checked that) light blue, navy or faded black flags flying what seemed like continuously. And to be fair to the PRO and her crew of volunteers they did an excellent job. I was a visitor at this event so not having been issued with the SI's when entering didn't have a clue what our Class flag was so was a bit of a sheep. This didn't help during the third race because the Class which should have started 5 mins before us were all 3 mins late, hence Wayne and I were miles away from the start which resulted in a general recall, Wayne and I were also very relieved on hearing the double sound signal. However, I'm not sure if a black flag was flown as the PRO was very helpful with her advice. When I started a minute too early she very politely told me I was on the course side of the line and this happened again just 50secs later when again I was OCS. After going around the Committee boat and started on my third attempt I commented on my disastrous start and they just acknowledged me some jovial comment which certainly didn't include disqualification. In fact I think they were just happy to see the back of me.
Had the Black Flag been flying then I'm sure with the level of competence they appeared to have the relevant sail numbers would have been noted and further action taken.

On the committee boat there were quite a lot of flags. On its port side it was flying:

- A red flag (leave marks to port)
- A yellow flag (start line marker) with a black flag (don't mess with the starts!) under it.

On the starboard side:

- A blue flag (In position at the finish line)
- A club burgee

Class flags (numerals 1 to 5, so ours was blue/yellow) and the preparatory flag were flown on the port side as well.

Simple really. And all explained in the SI which were available on the table upstairs where you have signed in on Saturday, as well as pinned to the official notice board next to the office in the wet bar.

On the start before our third start the Pro started two classes (start 3 and 4) at the same time by stacking the two numerals. She did it because there was only two boats on start 3 and they were both gone back ashore at that point. A couple of 49ers didn't notice and came screaming under spi from the other end of the reservoir. They started a couple of minutes late, during our sequence.

Yea, simple if you do it every week. However, I'm more used to lights for an onshore start or two flags for a committee boat start, that's what I call simple

Nah - I've tried your club starts. We were still trying to figure out which lights we were supposed to be looking at and which boat was supposed to be the pin when everyone else started. So we just followed them... which is much like how we do it for most of the Datchet club starts

I'm not sure about the black flag either. I didn't see it, but then I wouldn't have noticed it either (I thought I was doing well to recognise our class flag) but from what I know of the people on the committee boat I would have expected them to point it out.

Paul