Tag Archives: marblehead blog

Marblehead Racing – Club Series 15th March

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It was a brilliant bright day that greeted us. Clear, very clear, light and the lake appeared to be boiling….white horses all over the place. There was a large open meeting on for Flying Fifteens, wayfarers and wanderers so our South course venue at the main pontoon was impractical. HM did a super job with a compromised north course – with a new aluminium launching platform!!

The ‘big boys’ were away at Woodspring. So the hard core were ready to race at home!

It was meant to be five of us, then Phil was on family commitments – it being Mothers Day I guess. Then there were four.

It was quite obviously a C Rig kind of day (15-20 gusting 35 plus) , and out we went for a half hour blast through the waves(big). That was enough to sort RJ’s little used C rig – and the jib tack was sawed through by something. Very lucky not to dismast!! Then there were three.

The boats just flew. Race one was really fast – GH really superbly quick downwind – but the breeze continued to build. The guys came ashore for C2 discussions and quick rig resets. Then I notice JLR tightened up his main leech and definitely changed gear … improved pointing …… while GH seemed to go EVEN quicker. There were two spectacular ” an inch in it” kind of reaching finishes. Just brilliant to watch !!

Then the wind blew up even more (a lot more) and HM declared racing cancelled in favour of bacon rolls and tea. Job done – good day!

IOM UK Nationals …. Designs !!

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As at 28th February we had 48 entries showing for the Nationals. There’ll be a few more to come.

At four dozen, it doesn’t seem too soon to see how the entry population looks as far as designs are concerned. What is happening at the sharp end of the UK Fleet?

Not at all surprising that the most popular design in the fleet will be the fabulous Britpop – making up a third of the Fleet.

Quite surprising is the number of Venti now …. almost 20% of the fleet and you get a feeling that popularity is really growing. Momentum behind Venti is starting to build now.

Big surprise is the Proteus – after only a year (is it less?? I forget…) of home builds, already 10% of the Championship Fleet. With more and more coming off the home printing lines, it’s already exceeding the Alioth and Viss. Interesting. Just wait until the K7 glassfibre boats hit the market, eh?

Datchet Club’s 50th Anniversary….!!

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It was our host Club’s 50th Anniversary celebrations this weekend!! Good to feel part of it with them. They combined a few onshore celebrations with the 2026 Club Championships out on the water. Racing was greeted by a misty 5mph breeze, but looked pretty intense !!

Onshore there was meant to be a charity walk around the Reservoir (about 3 miles) but amazingly permission was withdrawn by the landlord – pity! Still we had the ladies run a Hospice shop – great jigsaws on sale!

The upstairs had been properly decorated and was looking great for the Championship prize giving not to mention the Bake Off Competition!

As it happens, five key members of Datchet Radio Sailing were competing away from home, leaving us somewhat depleted. The cool misty day would not have helped either – it wasn’t all that alluring!!

To make up for it, Graham brought a couple of stunning boats from his personal collection – with Howard and Richard there to give a hand, plus Phil consulting on the phone!. By the way, Richard 30 years a member and Howard even more than that !

The first was this amazing radio gaff rig cutter – quite a size actually. Superb craftsmanship as you’d expect – one of four built to the 15 metre rule for a group at Frensham. Technically very interesting to sail as there were three radio channels – main and jib sheets being on separate channels of the left joystick. (RJ thinking about some areas where the radio can help out – the joystick for jib sheet goes in different directions on starboard and port!)

Was this the first time a gaff rig had been seen at Datchet ?? Maybe!

The second boat was a converted Vane Ten Rater built to the old rule. That’s the one that stole my heart today – a gorgeous complete rebuild and running on radio now. Stunning and a whopping size. Stupidly I didn’t get photos of that as I had my IOM on the water on “rescue” duty in case we lost the gaff cutter … which happened a few times on saturday!! A small matter if the mainsheet not staying on the winch drum as intended!!