Safety Beach Sailing Club NEWS 5th November 2025
Off The Beach News
Kon-ni-chi-wa Gang. I'm back from the land of the Rising Sun, where among other places, I visited the site of the 2021 Olympic sailing venue, Enoshima. And guess what? Glass - not a ripple! Just goes to show, my wind predicting skills are not just confined to Safety Beach.
Having said that, last Sunday was one out of the box. Sandwiched between a wild Saturday and a torrential Monday, we had an absolutely cracking sailing day. 21 plus boats hit the water under the watchful eye of RO Rick Potter and Asst RO Mono M. The RHIB crews of Doc Taylor, Simon Haslett, James Thorne and Mark Lawrence had it about as easy as you could possibly get with a steady 8-12 knot breeze that never wavered more than 5 degrees from dead North all day.
With a nicely mixed fleet of Lasers, Sabres, Tasars, Quests, A Cats and a few others, including Alan, a visitor from Lysterfield, in his beautiful hand-built, classic timber Moth (not the foiling kind!), we all lined up for our respective starts. All that is except the Lasers, who played follow the leader and headed off with the Div 2 boats, knuckle heads!
For race one, the smart money suggested going straight up the middle, and with only a few minor shifts and gusts to play with, that held pretty true. One trick I learned to slow yourself down is to not cleat your halyard in properly. This works extremely well to lower not only your sail, but also your boom to the extent that it is really hard to get under during a tack. I'm constantly working on these methods of moving myself further back in the fleet to maintain conversations with the other skippers as they streak past. I didn't see Fiona M or Di J in her newly acquired Sabre as they hit the front and stayed there, leaving the rest of the div 2 boats, including Glen L and Wayne J in one Quest and Jamieson F and Dad Jamie in the other Quest to swap around and finally have a dead heat across the finish line.
Race two had the breeze a bit less so that same smart money said, " Head for the cliff!". Anybody that went out to sea soon realised they were in a no win situation as the wind coming over the hill gave more pressure and a lift as well to push the cliff dwellers up to the top mark while the rest just sat and watched.
After swapping the lead several times with Ross M in race one, Bill M had to pull out of race two, leaving Duncan M (what's with all the M's?) to chase Ross around the course in the Impulses. All of the Lasers and a couple of the Div 6 cats retired as well, so race two was a much smaller field, but that didn't diminish the memorable feat of (drumroll please), A Class Anthony taking out his first ever win!!! Look out Stu and Dave, Tony is coming for ya!! A nice little increase in the wind right at the finish gave us tail enders some excitement for the last few hundred metres, with Keith B holding on through the finish only to go for a swim right after the line, then having to be informed that he hadn't rounded the bottom mark, sigh.
Last but not least, lots of people kept asking "what's course 3 look like, where can I find it?" Well, it has been sent to you. It's on the Sailor app under documents/sailing instructions, same for the roster. You can find it on the SBSC web site under 'On Water OTB course diagrams'. It is also normally on the notice board next to the sign in desk, but they seem to have gone walkabout. They will be found and put back. It's early in the season and I'm sure we will all find our sea legs soon, so in the meantime, patience people and keep asking those questions. Off The Beach Homepage
Club Championship this Sunday 9th Nov. Geoff and Super D on Start, Doc Taylor and Nadine Huels on Sutherland and I'm still chasing replacements for Mal W and Catherine S who won't be joining us this season. Don't worry Geoff, I'll find someone.
