by Simon Hinnigan

It feels like spring is finally here!  Both Saturday and Sunday gave fabulous, sunny conditions at the club.  Bowmoor took 5 of the top 10 places on Saturday’s Phantom open, with Charlie Sansom taking 1^st and Chris Jenkins 2^nd on count back.  Thanks to David Nunn and the team for running the event.  If you haven’t seen them already, Lynn Bateman took some fantastic photo’s, she’s published them on Bowmoor Sailing Facebook.  Results here. 

Saturday afternoon/evening also gave great windsurfing conditions.  Sunday didn’t disappoint either, fantastic sunshine and great sailing thanks to OOD, Richard Leftly, who set three entertaining courses.  Many thanks to Sunday’s race team!

Thanks to those swimmers staying in the swim area for their evening swim, with the evenings getting lighter many sailors are going on the water in the evening.  To keep members safe, sailors must not go in the swim area after 16:30 and swimmers must not leave it.  If you’re not sure, please ask one of the club directors, or take a look at the activity program here. 

Next weekend is packed, on Saturday we have a local schools open day, member coaching, national coaching for Bytes and RS Tera, the first otters of the year, and spring sprints in the afternoon.  Find out more here. 

On Sunday we have the first Hour of Power for followed by Club racing.  Sign up for HoP here. 

Don’t forget the members work party on the 27^th, more on that from Mike Dyer below.

The galley is now back to summer schedule and open on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday evening.  They are running an expanded menu which can be ordered earlier in the day for lunch time (see the menu board).

See you at Bowmoor!

Simon

From Mike Dyer

We are having a work party on Saturday 27th April to get us ready for the Summer.  There are a lot of jobs to do both ashore and on the water.   There is a variety of gardening and painting to do.  We’re also planning to, clear out parts of the race hut and boat shed, and maintain and repair the race marks.    As always, the more helpers, the lighter the work.

We’ll start at 10, and there will be soup and rolls for everyone working.

From Tom Whittingham
We are holding a schools targeted Come and Try on Saturday 20th April from 10:00 to 14:00.  This is designed to overlap with Club training activity to showcase what we can offer to young sailor development (and parents).  We need helms, some power boat drivers to deliver the on-water activity and a shore party to manage time allocations, safety equipment and talk to prospective members. and what the Club has to offer and training options.    Please email sailing@bowmoor.com to volunteer.

Geoff Silcock has kindly continued the series league table scoring that we started in 2023.  The concept is straight forward, every sailor gets series completion points calculated from the number of series qualifiers, minus position, plus one point.  We’ll update and post in the club, but here are the results after Winter 23 and Spring 24, thanks Geoff.

Race report from Neil Crosby

Neil Crosby and Graham Royle travelled to Whitefriars for the second event of the Sailingfast sponsored ILCA Wessex Grand Prix Series on Saturday 13^th April. In a very shifty and gusty wind which built through the day, the event turned into a three-way battle between John Ling from Bartley, Neil and Richard Gimmler from the home club.  The first race was a bit of a lottery due to a short fetch to a “windward” mark with both start line and mark placed under the lee of the clubhouse.  John Ling and Richard Gimmler led the first 4 boats around the mark and disappeared into the distance leaving the rest of the fleet becalmed on the mark. After escaping the pack, Neil caught one of them but never looked like catching the other three.  Graham was 10^th. 

A complete course reset for races 2, 3 and 4 with a slight port bias start line and a proper windward leg and mark placement allowed for some good close racing throughout the 16 strong fleet. John Ling and Neil both tacked early from near the pin and crossed the fleet, but a late right-hand shift meant they were beaten to the windward mark by one of the local sailors.  But they got through him on the second beat and extended away with Richard Gimmler coming through to take 3^rd.  The third race had a carbon copy start but this time John and Neil maintained the lead to the windward mark and extended away from the rest of the fleet.  John led for three of the four laps, but Neil caught the shifts on the final beat to pass and extend away for the win.  This left Neil needing to win the final race to take the meeting on countback but despite competing for two laps, ran out of steam on the third lap, and lost second place to Richard.  By winning his third race, John took the ILCA 7 overall win with Neil second and Richard third.  Graham added another two 10^th places to his first race 10^th to end up 8^th ILCA 7.  Toby Owens from the home club was 1^st ILCA 6, and Daniel Sandler took the only ILCA 4 prize as he had done at Bowmoor.

Wednesday 17th April
19:00 Spring Wednesday Evening Series
Saturday 20th April
Member Training, Byte Class Training, Otters and Sprints
Sunday 21st April
09:15 Hour of Power (HOP) starts
11:30 Spring Series AM
13:30 Spring Series PM
15:00 Spring Series late PM
Wednesday 24th April
19:00 Spring Wednesday Evening Series
Saturday 27th April
Membership Work Party (Lake Closed until 12:30)
Sunday 28th April
09:15 Hour of Power (HOP)
11:30 Spring Series AM
13:30 Spring Series PM
15:00 Spring Series late PM

The full calendar is published on bowmoor.com/calendar/