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CSSC Scottish Team Racing Castle Semple Loch 2019

Scottish Team Racing Event 9th March 2019 (15)

Hi all

As you know we hosted a Scottish Team Racing Association event today, after the very damp day on Friday the forecast didn’t look good for Saturday. After a brief hail storm at the start of the racing, the day was actually mostly dry and sunny.

However the wind was very temperamental and I suspect I wasn’t too popular with one of the students telling him that the wind usually increased between 12 and 1pm and then settled down ……oops, no it did not settle down at all, some horrendous gusts followed.

All the competitors ended up investigating the murky waters of Castle Semple Loch at some point during the afternoon. One poor guy hadn’t brought a change of clothes – but thankfully Arthur came to the rescue.

Another female fell out of her boat and spent some time being rescued meanwhile their fellow team boat was seen to capsize.

Peter revealed it was the first time in 6 years that he had capsized in a firefly – so that gives some indication of how gusty it was.

The windsurfing club were running an event at the same time giving some interesting manoeuvres for the racing, and at one point in the afternoon several windsurfing boards “resting” on a pontoon took off on their own, such were the gusts,

However, a good time was had by all and they planned to head to a pub for the evening to recover.

The Castle Semple Team of Arthur, Hugh, Peter and various crew were third out of 6 teams so a good result – well done!

Dawn

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Our GP14 and Enterprise Traveller Week End

Hi everyone

Once again Team Castle Semple rose to the challenge and delivered a fantastic weekend for our visitors (OK there was a slight hiccup with the breakfast on Sunday morning  – but only because more people had come to the event than we anticipated (seems word has got out that we are a friendly welcoming club so people want to come to our events ) – everyone got fed in the end).  Once again the weather gods were on our side with warm sunshine the whole weekend and the strong easterly winds made for some challenging but enjoyable sailing.

We had 15 boats in total taking part – 9 Enterprise (7 visitors and 2 home) and 6 GP14 (1 visitor and 5 home).

Huge thanks as always to Angus Winchester for his role as Race Officer with assistance from Duncan Elder and Jim Tytler in the Committee Boat and to Mark Simmonds  and Brian Young in the safety boat, and also to Jan Gordon and 1 part of Team Pam for recording all the results and to Jules Whitestone and others (some visitors) for helping in the kitchen etc.

Angus, as always kept to a tight schedule, and on Saturday the consensus was that 3 back to back races should be run “to get it over with!”.  Race 1 saw several capsizes but after that the competitors got the measure of the wind strength and race 2 went without incident.  Race 3 saw an encounter with 2 Enterprises – Chris and Paul Owen and Charles Morrish and Alison Robertson Morrish disqualifying them from the race, Chris and Paul Owen did not finish the race due to the collision but both boats were not damaged badly so were able to continue competing in subsequent races.  Separately, Loz Young and Barry O’Sullivan’s boat was damaged due to the strength of the wind stressing the structure of the boat putting them out of the competition.   But on the plus side the “tight schedule” meant that there was plenty of time to sit and enjoy the sunshine and good company – with the odd beer or to thrown in before 28 of us moved on to the Loch House for  a very enjoyable evening although it has to be said it was not a late night – still we were lucky that Mike Heap joined us after getting locked into the compound!

Sunday morning looked like the wind had abated  ….but that turned out to be for the first race only as the wind strengthened again.  The 6th and final race saw saw a close finish for several Enterprises and couple GP14 capsizes for those who are normally unaccustomed to investigating the murky waters of Castle Semple Loch.  Our GP14 visitors Alan Jones and Sue Watson were continually chasing the home team of Arthur Logan and Iain Hardy but even after taking some late night tips from Angus, Arthur and Iain were still out of reach….there is always next year Alan!

So the final winners were:

Enterprise fleet:  

First:   Richard Pryke and Amelia Pryke.  (Ripon)

Second:  Chris Owen and Paul Owen. ( Royal Highland)

Third: Charles Morrish and Alison Roberton Morrish. ( St Mary’s Loch)

GP14 Fleet

First:  Arthur Logan and Iain Hardy. (CSSC)

Second: Alan Jones and Sue Watson. (Bassenswaite)

Third : Tom Kelly and Matt. (CSSC)

 

FULL LIST OF RESULTS

Thanks to everyone who came along and to Paul  O’Neill for supplying the trophies and to our sponsors Gael Force Marine for supplying the prizes, still not sure what Pam is going to do with that Shark !

 

Dawn
Commodore