Tollesbury Sailing Club

Local information

andy_beharrell — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:06:43 +0000

We are lucky as East Coast sailors that there is a wealth of information available to support us online. With some fairly tricky pilotage for many of our harbours, it is a great help for us that there is an intrepid band of sailors who survey the harbours regularly and put the results online. Follow the links below for details and chartlets for various harbours.

For further updates, keep an eye on the following sites:

More fooling around

rik_alewijnse — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:40:07 +0000

We have two new times for sailing this year: Friday evenings and Sunday mornings. This Friday’s races were perhaps a touch early with a 5 pm start; I should have taken advantage of the hour’s later tide on Saturday evening as cadets haven’t started sailing yet. I made another cock-up on Sunday, having set the start time for Saturday morning’s tide. Fortunately some sailors had spotted my mistake and turned up around six, so we still had four boats on the start line at 7 am. Many thanks to Nick and Roger for volunteering to single-hand GPs on both Friday and Saturday; so maximising the boat numbers.

Friday’s races were a touch slow because of light winds, so the courses were set as were short one-and-a-half lappers. Nick and Roger fought it out to the line, with Dan in third and Will fourth. Roger made his excuses for the second race, which had a much tighter finish with Will just behind Nick at the line, though it was Will, Dan then Nick once the PY had been calculated.

Sunday morning defied the critics with sunshine and a steady F3, rising to F4 and causing Simon Young to gybe his way to a capsize and allow Roger to pip him at the line. For the second race, the single handed GPs had as much breeze as they could cope with and everyone was flying along. Simon pulled out sufficient lead over Roger to play safe and tack round at the gybe mark before the line, with Will third and Nick fourth.

There are still enough races to qualify for the evening points and the remaining races are either on Sunday evenings or later on Fridays. There are only two moreSunriseSundays, but as Race 2 was abandoned due to lack of wind, you could still qualify with four races out of seven. You can have a post-race breakfast in the Tollesbury Café and still have time to enjoy the rest of the day as well.

Starboard … no port … no starboard …

andy_beharrell — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:50:50 +0000

How well do you know your racing rules? The site below was recently recommended as a way to see how well you know your racing rules. It is a quiz with three different levels – easy, medium or difficult. Why not have a go and see how you get on? Follow the link below to access the main quiz homepage:

Play the rules

Don’t do this at home … !

andy_beharrell — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:50:18 +0000

Crash test boat

Over the last year Yachting Monthly has been carrying out a unique experiment. They were given an old 40 foot Jeanneau SunFizz which they then, in the name of research, proceeded to destroy! After running the boat aground to see the best way to get off, they then decided to put a hole in the bottom, dismast it and put up a jury rig, capsize it and finally they destroyed it completely with a gas explosion.

This may all sound very destructive (and ultimately it was!), but it is also very useful to see the techniques they used to help alleviate the impact of all these disasters. There is something for all of us to learn from these experiments. For example, do you have cable cutters on board to cut shrouds in an emergency? Well the YM team found that a hacksaw with a blade for cutting stainless may be as effective and certainly cheaper than a pair of good cable cutters.

Click below to view the various YouTube videos of the crash test boat being progressively destroyed!

April Fools kick off the Sunrise Series

rik_alewijnse — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:22:42 +0000

It was a gloomy and cold start to the 2012 Sunrise Series. Only three crews were April Foolish enough to brave the frosty conditions, drift off the hard and slowly inch their way up Tollesbury creek in very light airs. The support boat crew were either snuggled up in bed or unexpectedly working, so Rik and John Bellman did OOD duty from alongside the Yellow Peril, then followed Simon Young (Laser) and Will Porter (Topper) away after the starting gun. It was probably the only time Rik has ever been right on the line at the start! The low tide (4.1 m) caught Rik and John out and by the time they had the board up out of the mud and were back on course, Simon Young was well on his way up the beat to No 2 with Will close behind. The second mark was all but invisible in the glare from the rising sun and the GP14 took the lead as Simon lost his way, Positions were held until half-way up the beat to Joyce’s Head, when Simon took the lead again. Will caught up as Rik and John grounded once again, though they were soon round the No 4 and off on the run with the spinnaker catching the light breeze. At the line it was Simon, Rik and John, then Will. Timekeeping was fairly hit-and-miss due to the absence of an independent hand on the stopwatch, but accurate enough to reverse second and third places on handicap.

Boats were cleaned down and put away by 9:30 with the crews set to make the most of the rest of the day. The next early start is in two weeks time, why not set your alarm and join us? At least starts will be after sunrise!

Rik Alewijnse 1 April 2012

Walton Channel – or lack of it?

andy_beharrell — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:32:53 +0000

Any members heading for the Walton Backwaters might like to take heed of warnings that have been issued about the Walton Channel near Stone Point. The channel has narrowed considerably as a result of shingle accumulating on the NW corner of Stone Point. This also means that tidal streams in the area are often running in excess of 4 knots with some strong eddies in the shallows outside the channel.

For more details, have a look at the following websites:

East Coast sailing website news
Walton and Frinton YC – pilotage

Take care sailing around Osea

andy_beharrell — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:10:38 +0000

If any members are planning a sail round Osea Island in the near future, they may want to take care crossing the Osea Causeway. In what was thought initially to be a case of fly tipping, 450 tons of rubble has been dropped on the causeway. See the East Coast Sailing website for pictures. A Notice to Mariners has been issued by Maldon District Council.

It has now emerged that the rubble was apparently dumped or rather delivered by contractors working for the owner of Osea to try to restore the causeway. However, this had been done without any permissions from the relevant authorities and so Maldon District Council have said:

” … the work is un-authorised and illegal and it is now working alongside the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Marine Management Organisation to investigate.”

There is an excellent article with pictures on the Creeksailor blog. The rubble will apparently be reduced down to the previous level so that the causeway is no higher, but members would be well advised to take care in the meantime.

GP14 Open and the ‘Blackwater Experience’

andy_beharrell — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:50:10 +0000

If you are not heading down the M5 to Cornwall this August for the GP14 Championships but would like some sea sailing experience a visit to the East coast for 2 or 3 days of very varied sailing is another option. The Blackwater once home to huge GP fleets at Brightlingsea and Stone etc. is a superb dinghy sailing area. The North shore has been preserved from all development and with conservation groups now owning many areas around Tollesbury and Mersea Island it is a National Nature Reserve. The Tollesbury SC GP14 Open, sailed in the shallow tidal fleet (lagoon) is on the 19th August. This will have the usual format of afternoon sailing with hot food/bar and prize giving after 3 back to back races. The difference this year is that we hope to encourage visitors to stay and sail the first 2 days or more of Mersea Week.

On Monday the sailing is in the main estuary, with launching from the W.Mersea slipways. With plans to re-establish GP14s at Mersea Week the TSC GP14s will be supporting the event in greater numbers this year. Mersea Week is best known for its large fleet of Essex oyster smacks (see our photo gallery from the Smacks and Classic Yachts race – October 2011). These represent a pinnacle of working sail development and provide a spectacular sight on the water.

On Tuesday the WMYC and Dabchicks SC run their version of the ‘Round the Island Race’. This is an open dinghy/cat handicap with up to 150 entrants, its unusal feature is that you have to specify your entry time a week in advance and circumnavigate the island (in either direction) with the aim of reaching the causeway to the island at high tide and so cross quickly. There is usually a good turnout of GPs , however, the event is something of a gamble and an account can be found in the articles section on the TSC website. Depending on conditions it takes between 2 and 3 hours.

So what is on offer are several days of very different sailing with options for cruising to the Greenman PH at Bradwell etc. if you don’t fancy all the races! The TSC members will try and provide accommodation for visiting sailors but other options include Mersea’s numerous caravan sites or B and Bs; there is also the Bradwell sailing centre across the estuary.

Details and entry forms will appear on the TSC website or email dinghy@tollesburysc.com, You will be guaranteed a warm welcome and assistance to attend any of these events whatever your level of experience. The main objective is that everybody has some thoroughly enjoyable holiday sailing.

George Rogers & Rik Alewinjse
GP14 13958

All hands on deck

andy_beharrell — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:33:24 +0000

The season is looming and this means that there are work parties required to get everything ship shape and Bristol fashion at the club.

You don’t have to be a dinghy sailor or even have a boat to come and help with some pre season maintenance at the club. First priorities are boats and buoys but we also need to smarten up benches, fences etc.. Bring a paint brush and scraper if you have one, everything else supplied, including bacon butties.

The first work party will be Sunday 4th March and for a few weeks after that. Full details are available in the calendar: