JOG 2016

[flaming]

Beer on it?

 

[Judders]

Yeah, why not.

 

[flaming]

See you in Yarmouth then!

 

[Racecruiser]

A couple of good races but Saturday was sloooow towards the finish and a game of snakes and ladders for the last hour and a half. Sunday was good for us but we couldn't hang onto Whooper but then she is an RTI Gold Roman Bowl winner.

I see Sunday class 4 is subject to protest - spill the beans Flaming. And well done on your win on Sun.

We missed the VHF announcement giving the time for the Sat North sails film and analysis - was it any good and did they say it will be online?

 

[Yacht Yogi]

A great weekend of sailing all round. Saturday we galloped off into a big lead in Class 4 right from the start and by the time we got back around to Lepe Spit heading for Yarmouth had an unassailable lead. Unfortunately we then decided to cross onto the Island shore into Thorness Bay. You know the rest! A slow and frustrating drift-athon that dropped us back down the placings. But some great sailing nonetheless.
Sunday was a fantastically close race all the way, with positions changing continuously. Flaming did a great job heading deep off the start while our gaggle of J-boats and Sunfasts pushed each other higher and higher with only Red Arrow sailing their proper angles. We all joined up again at Lepe Spit for a bit of gybe tangling on the way to Hill Head. Next reaching leg was interesting for the variety of tactics. Some held kites and some went white-sails, Just So swapped their jib for a Code Zero half way along, which seemed to pay for them but they got trapped on the outside at the mark. Onto the beat we managed to power our way out of the traffic and make up a lot of ground on the boats ahead, which is a novel experience for us as we've been complete rubbish upwind until very recently. Nearly had a nasty port-on-stb'd whoopsie with Exocet, then got lee-bowed by Asassin right on the finishing line. All fantastic close racing and well done Flaming for your win today.

 

[flaming]

I see Sunday class 4 is subject to protest - spill the beans Flaming. And well done on your win on Sun.

Nothing to do with me! Though there was a fair amount of shouting on the start line.

Saturday was very frustrating. Only Jybe talking got a better start than us, and although the first leg was very J friendly, the beat was good for us and at HWS we were 2nd and in touch. Ummed and aaared about the kite and finally popped it about ⅔ of the way down. Only to get headed 200 yards from east bramble. So that became a disaster. Next leg we went to the north shore before anyone else. Initially it looked really good, and we couldn't understand why anyone was in the middle. But it was an odd day, and that's where the winners came from. We spent some time going backwards...
Sunday was much better! Before the start we didn't give ourselves good odds, as the angles were a bit too J friendly, and our aim was to be in touch at east bramble and strike on the beat - our natural strength. But the whole fleet was very accommodating to my start plan, so we got launched at the start and being the first ones with a kite meant we could lead the charge to the North shore. Yogi is right that we were deeper than the rest of the fleet but only initially. After we had enough separation I just matched the angle of the rest as we didn't want to be beaten to the shallows. Then soaked away once in the shallows and a nice gybe. We were fully expecting to be passed on that leg up the shore, but it seems our new kite is a good'n!
To me the key to the race was at Leepe. The 3 J's that were closest to us were just too far out at that point. There's a tide line at Leepe, and we were at the buoy with them about 40m outside. They must have had over a knot more foul tide, as they lost out hugely and we gained about 30 boat lengths. That meant we weren't put under any pressure across to hill head, and meant that the gap we had we were comfortable with so we didn't have to risk a kite on the reach. We certainly could have held our S3, but we judged it to not be worth the risk. If the J's hadn't let us get away at Leepe I think we'd have made the call to hoist. Then once at East Bramble in the lead we just put a loose cover on the nearest J and let our natural upwind advantage do the rest. A really fun race!
And Judders, you never came and claimed your beer on Saturday! Boy did I back the wrong horse there...

 

[Judders]

Funnilly enough, we accompanied the J88 on the final beat into Yarmouth into the sea-breeze. They couldn't get away from us, which baring in mind quite how easily everyone in our fleet did, was probably a concern for them!

We were rubbish on Saturday and made the wrong call on Sunday, though we did make some places up by going hard right on the beat. However we had a very good time and I even managed to renew my bowman's ticket: the first time in a long time I've done so on a symmetric boat but I actually quite enjoyed it.

Unfortunately I was too drunk to claim my beer on Saturday! Using Heiniken to rehydrate was probably an error before the hospitality on Njos which involved far to many spirits and not enough mixers.

 

[flaming]

Funnilly enough, we accompanied the J88 on the final beat into Yarmouth into the sea-breeze. They couldn't get away from us, which baring in mind quite how easily everyone in our fleet did, was probably a concern for them!

We were rubbish on Saturday and made the wrong call on Sunday, though we did make some places up by going hard right on the beat. However we had a very good time and I even managed to renew my bowman's ticket: the first time in a long time I've done so on a symmetric boat but I actually quite enjoyed it.

Unfortunately I was too drunk to claim my beer on Saturday! Using Heiniken to rehydrate was probably an error before the hospitality on Njos which involved far to many spirits and not enough mixers.

Yes, I think they're still learning the boat.

It turned out that the Poole boats had a number of our regulars scattered over a couple of boats in their number, and one of them made the mistake of having a birthday on Saturday. It got rather messy.

Dinner in Salty's was as good as ever though. I think.

 

[flaming]

A nice view of the fleet on Sunday!

 

[Racecruiser]

There are loads of photos from Paul our stalwart crew on Raffles on the JOG site - http://www.jog.org.uk/replist.aspx

 

[Judders]

So I take it noone here went to Roscoff?

Very much looking forward to Alderney at the weekend. Couldn't find enough buggers daft enough to go on Magic so I've hitched a lift on Njos

 

[Racecruiser]

No Roscoff or fun week for us - we wanted to take part but couldn't make the logistics work. And no Alderney either for a number of reasons but it looks like the weather will be lovely if a little light. Have a good trip on NJOS Judders!

 

[bdh198]

I crewed over to Roscoff, but not the week of fun to Treguier and St Peter Port.

It was a slow race in light N/E winds (spinnaker all the way) and there was a very frustrating time crossing the Channel to The Casquets when the wind struggled to get much above 3kts for several hours resulting us missing the favourable tide off Alderney.

 

[Judders]

Fecamp last weekend which was great although a disappointing entry in our class.

Class 6 entries have been disappointing for the offshores this year. We would like to have done more but the boat was broken for St Vaast and we couldn't get crew for Dartmouth. We are hopeful that we might do Cherbourg II if Njos have tied up Class 3 by then. If we make a success of that then I shall push to do a fuller campaign next year.

What can JOG do to boost class 6 offshore?

Obviously Alchemist's passing is one entry down for ever though perhaps Mark will buy something else.

 

[flaming]

Obviously Alchemist's passing is one entry down for ever though perhaps Mark will buy something else.

Is she unsalvageable?

 

[Racecruiser]

Class 6 entries have been disappointing for the offshores this year. We would like to have done more but the boat was broken for St Vaast and we couldn't get crew for Dartmouth. We are hopeful that we might do Cherbourg II if Njos have tied up Class 3 by then. If we make a success of that then I shall push to do a fuller campaign next year.

What can JOG do to boost class 6 offshore?

Obviously Alchemist's passing is one entry down for ever though perhaps Mark will buy something else.

A good question re class 6 and of concern to the committee I can assure you. For this year we discussed but decided against moving to 3 classes offshore (while maintaining 4 inshore).

We have James who was on Alchemist for the RTI on Raffles for the Saturday of the Taittinger regatta so we'll get the full story no doubt - I won't be posting anything as some of the less-than-charitable folk on Scuttlebutt don't need any more encouragement.

 

[Judders]

I've been giving some thought to getting more class six boats racing offshore and I'm not sure what the answer is.

Dropping the class though would, I think, be counter productive. By all means combine starts but I really don't want to have to compete with Sigma 38s and the like. That would turn races into more of a weather/handicap lottery again. There's no reason why we shouldn't share start lines but the results should stay extracted in my view.

There is a Facebook group that had been formed with a view to getting owners of these sorts of boats to coordinate better; I shall ask the question there and feed back via you and Andy Hill.

 

[Channel Sailor]

I've been giving some thought to getting more class six boats racing offshore and I'm not sure what the answer is.......

Please can anyone post a link to a description of what class 6 is?

 

[Judders]

Please can anyone post a link to a description of what class 6 is?

In JOG terms; a vessel who's IRC is below 0.934

http://www.jog.org.uk/Race_rules.aspx

 

[DFL1010]

Probably an obvious answer here, but what happened to Class 1 and 2? No entrants, or ???