Apr 2013 Issue - the Aberdeen Boat Club

Race ReportsClose shave between Redeye and Andiamo(by Philippe de Manny)Red alert for Redeye (by Eileen Sze)Waglan Race 10By Philippe de Manny, photos by Philippe de Manny and Eileen SzeOn 10 March, the last race of theWaglan 2013 series took place,completing another great seasonof racing down south. Jebsen Marine,our sponsor for the year, gave generoussupport to this ever-more popular sailingevent. Jebsen Marine certainly will carryon next year as sponsor of a new seriesof island and geometric races.On this beautiful sunny Marchmorning, 25 boats were on the entrylist, with five potential division B boats.The weather forecast sadly predicteda day with no wind, which for a sailingrace clearly is not ideal. After the habitualconsultation of sailors during breakfast,two similar short courses for bothdivisions were chosen, taking the fleetfrom Deep Water Bay to south Lammaand back.On the way out, wind checks provedthe weather forecast right for once,and no wind was to be found withinthe normal starting area, making itobvious that if wind was to be found itwould be outside Round Island. Eventhere, between 9:50 and 10:45, theanemometer recorded a wind average of3 knots, too little to start a race.Race Officer Philippe de Manny andhis newly appointed Assistant RaceOfficer Eileen Sze were pessimisticabout having a race and had thepostponement and cancelling flagsready. Suddenly, just before raisingthese flags, a light breeze was felt and4-knot winds appeared on the screen ofthe wind-speed recorder.Jumping the guns, so to speak, thedecision to send the fleet was taken,flags changed and the fleet was “enroute” for a long, hot and slow race.On the way to Chesterman buoy, itwas still a struggle for the fleet to getmoving, and it took most of the fleet overone hour to round the buoy. After thestart, the committee boat was stationedat the same mark, monitoring the windand looking at shortening the race onthe way back. A chase boat was sent toSouth Lamma to lay the ABC roundingmark and get ready to shorten the racethere, if necessary. By noon the windpicked up slightly, getting the boatsmoving and avoiding the shortening ofthe race at Lamma at least for the fasterDivision A yachts. RO Philippe on thechase boat off Lamma was constantlychecking wind conditions with thecommittee boat at Chesterman. The ROdecided to shorten the Division A boatsthere to ensure a full finish, while divisionB boats were set to finish at Lamma.On the fun-fact file for the race,Philippe called the committee boat onchannel 72 of the VHF, asking themto change to the Club channel in orderto communicate. This was muchcommentedupon during the prize-givingby some sailors, who said that theywere hoping for the committee boat toconfirm the Channel and thus to reveal tothe whole fleet this well-guarded secret.Unfortunately for them the secret channelremained undisclosed.Results were swiftly produced byEileen Sze and posted on the website thesame evening, a great improvement fromprevious races, when sometimes it took afew days for uploading by the computerilliteratePhilippe.P.20