The super smart

'RS Sailors Sail it-Live it-Love it' Polos as seen at the RYA Dinghy Show will be available for sale at the UK Spring Champs at Grafham, 19/20 March at event registration for £29. Ladies sizes 8 to 16 and men S to XXL. Easiest payment is cash or cheque.

 

 

Grafham Water is big, not the largest, but at 3M long & 1.5M wide it can easily accommodate the size of course you'd normally see at a sea venue; certainly those we sailed at Barcelona.

 

The surrounding land is low lying relative to the lake surface, which means that with the exception of a southerly the surface wind flows directly onto the water, and speeds up!!  This gives rise to quite narrow stronger bands of wind a short distance offshore that tend to follow the contour of the shore: whilst the centre can experience either softer pressure from variable direction or the pressure gradient wind.

 

This can give a lot of choice for the 1st windward leg off the start line:

Pin end & Committee Boat end boats tend to bang the corners & head for the nearest bank effect band, whilst middle line boats tend to roll-tack the lifts & headers up the centre.  Pretty much standard stuff except that it often happens that all converge on the windward mark in close order with advantage decided by the vagaries of the wind in the last 100 meters, which can be substantially different to that further out, and mark approach & rounding tactics. 

 

Downwind legs can be similar.

 

This combination of wind strategy & tactics gives very close competitive racing, and means that lower and middle rank sailors can often round the next mark either ahead of everyone else, or several places up; I have heard a national champions exclaim 'How the Hell did he get there?', & 'Has he got his own private wind?'.  

 

Similarly substantial gains can be made on downwind the legs.

 

Perhaps this is why Grafham has in the past been the home of competitive fleets of: Fireball, 505, Flying Fifteen, Dart 18, Dart 15, & Lasers regularly turning out 10+ boats in Sunday club racing and with many crews competing on the circuits, at nationals, and Europeans.

 

We're not there yet with the Aero.  But there is a lot of interest in the club. Currently there are 10 Aero entries in the Spring Championship, including 3 from Grafham.  It would be great to see more, as there is a lot of interest in the boat in the club and a good showing can help persuade others.

 

 

ONLINE ENTRY via the RS800 site;

(Don't do your Class Assoc membership via there, 2016 RS Aero membership will be launched soon.)

 

SIX NATIONS RUGBY - don't worry we have it covered!

England vs France showdown on big screen in the bar upstairs at 20:00.