Commodore Triumphs Again
Due to various Spanish sailing championships being hosted by their venue, CTD Los Narejos, the latest SAMM Race Day was held on Wednesday June 21st. For the second race day running, SAMM Commodore Jack Moss, with his crew Dianne Hardwick, was in a winning boat.
In the first race, all 5 boats were away smartly on a starboard tack, but John Down, Laser Radial, made an error and tried to make up for it by switching to a port tack. This was the wrong choice and he ended up 4th at the 1st mark, the lead boat being Omega, Steve Hall and Andy Grant. Vision, Julian Pering and Stuart Meadows, struggled in the light wind. John was then in catch-up mode and passed Cuatro on the 2nd lap and Norman Veneer, also in a Laser Radial, in the 3rd and was then chasing the Omega. The lap times for the Omega were most consistent, averaging just over 10 minutes and they held off John to the finish. The wind had increased to between 5 and 6 knots by the 4th lap. All boats completed 6 laps in the hour-long race except Vision which only managed 3. After the handicaps were applied the race results were: Cuatro, Jack and Dianne, followed by Omega, John’s Laser, Norman’s Laser and Vision.
For the second race, with the wind at over 6 knots from S/E all the boats made a good start on starboard. The Omega was first to the windward mark, followed by John in the Laser and then Cuatro and Norman in the Laser battling it out, with Vision bringing up the rear and sailing well in the increasing wind. This was the order for a couple of laps, until John tried his port tack tactic at the beginning of the 3rd lap, which worked this time and he beat Omega to the mark. With the wind gusting to 10 knots at this point this was the order for the remainder of the race. Lap times were faster than the first race due to increased wind strength. After handicaps were applied the results were: John, Laser followed very closely by the consistent Omega in 2nd, then Cuatro, Norman Veneer in his Laser and Vision.
All boats had good races, there were no incidents to mar the proceedings and yet again some of the Average Lap timings were very close.
First Race
Cuatro 518 secs
Omega 522 secs
John Laser 533 secs
Norman Laser 585 secs
Vision 816 secs
Second Race
John Laser 375 secs
Omega 381 secs
Cuatro 394 secs
Norman Laser 423 secs
Vision 559 secs
Photos.
John, left and Jack, right.
Cuatro
Laser
A SAMM Day Out
Two of the SAMM Groups, Balaton and Shoestring, enjoyed a fun sail-meal-sail on Friday June 23rd, organised by Balaton Group leader Julian Pering as part of the SAMM Social Calendar.
2 Shoestring boats Uno and Cuatro and three Balaton boats started from their base at CAR, Los Narejos on the Mar Menor at 10.30am with the SAMM support boat, crewed by Martin and Norman, heading for the La Playa restaurant at Los Urrutias. Some wives and other members were to meet them there.
Two of the Balaton Russian members were sailing Sirocco with new Swedish member Nils. Vision was crewed by their German member Jurgen with Jez and guest Shelley and Ginetta by Julian with Colum and Laura. The five boats sailed through the gap between Pediguera and Baron Islands on a south easterly breeze, then turned west towards Los Urrutias. Well most did! For some reason Jez was convinced that Los Urrutias was further down the coast and instead of following the other four boats, decided to sail on south. Once they realised the mistake they put away their sails and motored in order to catch up. The Shoestring dinghies put into the beach adjacent to one of the new jetties while the Balaton boats anchored offshore due to the shallow water.
Everybody had an excellent Menu del Dia at La Playa restaurant with 22 people from SAMM attending. After lunch, Julian accepted the ‘Parrot’ (a prize for a Balaton member who messes up) from Sergey for the mistake of not putting Visions’ keel down at the start of the last race day. However, he was pleased to immediately pass it to Jurgen and Jez for heading in the wrong direction this morning. Over lunch, Colum and Laura asked if they could join the Balaton Group and have since done so.
The dinghies were able to get quickly away once the lunch was over and the Whaly gave the crews a taxi ride out to the Balaton boats. As requested by Martin, Julian helped push the Whaly off the jetty and, as a reward, was soaked to the skin by the prop wash when Martin deliberately revved the engine. Unfortunately no video of this ambush.
On the way back, the boats had a lovely beam reach sail in a decent breeze. Sirocco decided to take a route too far to the east, the crew not knowing they should steer for the blue building which shows where to head to get back to CAR. Jules phoned to get them back on track and they were not far behind, coming in fast on the good breeze.