Near miss in Blackwater,

[Loggo]

Millbeach.

I dont know why you bother.

Ther's none so blind as those who will not see.

I have seldom read a post where so many circumnavigated a point in order to flame the sender.

 

[Burnham Bob]

I think the point was not who was in the right or the wrong, but whether race courses should be set with consideration for other sailors.

We get a lot of juniors on the Crouch - in fact I was surrounded by them today coming back from Fambridge. The course for today's race was set in the trots and as far as i could see from around the Burnham Sailing Club to down by the Corinthian.

The fairway was left free and although after we dropped sails and started motoring to the mooring we had to avoid lots of them and give them lots of room, they were welcome to the river as far as I was concerned. The course was set very sensibly and was as challenging and as much fun as the youngsters could want.

 

[Cobra]

Millbeach.

I dont know why you bother.

Ther's none so blind as those who will not see.

I have seldom read a post where so many circumnavigated a point in order to flame the sender.

So, even if you don't agree with the OP's stance, you should agree just to keep the peace?

Sorry, I have been PRO on numerous occassions and have laid courses that cross the deepwater channel in the Colne to get a good windward leg. It is the duty of those participating in a race to behave in a seamanlike manner, in just the same way that it is the duty of those using the river going about their business to behave in a seamanlike manner. As Mariner69 said in an earlier post was the OP displaying the corect day signal for motor sailing?

Not trying to flame anyone, just trying to see what the real problem was, and at this juncture all that I can see is that the OP seems to feel that he had an automatic right of way. I disagree!

 

[toad]

Well i'm with Millbeach on this one, fortunately I passed the fleet just as they started so was able to get clear. Sending eighty plus racing dinghy's across a river used not just by sailing cruisers but speed boats, large power boats,jet skis and just about any other non commercial vessels is foolhardy in my opinion.
The problem is if you wait by the time the rear of the fleet is thinning out the leaders are returning. On the rare occasion that I have right of way they get very aggressive as in " I'm racing " type calls.
Stone seem to be hosting more and more of these large events,this must be all to the good but I wish the race officer would think it through a bit more.

It will be interesting to see what happens when there is a power skiing competition on at the same time,after all every one has the right to use the water.

 

[MoodySabre]

They were out again today - I was sailing and didn't have any problems with them - lovely to see them all. There is loads of water - unless you have a deep fin keel at LWS then there's no need to stick to the channel. Well I never do

Beautiful day on the water. Lunch on the hook at Osea. I shed a tear for those at work

 

[NUTMEG]

COLREGS?

Read this thread with interest, and am sometimes surprised at the positions some adopt. I do not feel racers have a god given right to do as they please, no more then the cruisers have. I have been known to wave at jetskiers too.

I am having a daysail on Wednesday. Usual crew in Vietnam, so will be out with 72 year old Mum and 70 year old uncle, both of whom are normally sighted. Out of Maylandsea, round Osea and back, nothing adventurous.

Dont know if i will meet the Stone racers, but Blackwater SC are having a regatta week as is my club (HBSC) so lots of dinghy racers about. I try to avoid racing fleets as far as poss but I would have thought, but stand to be corrected, that complying with COLREGS should be all that is required.

If any youngsters gave me a mouthful, as a teacher in a secondary comprehensive, I think I could cope!

 

[Cobra]

I try to avoid racing fleets as far as poss but I would have thought, but stand to be corrected, that complying with COLREGS should be all that is required.

PRECISELY!!!

 

[Pye_End]

PRECISELY!!!

One of the problems I have found meeting racing dinghies is that they don't always know the COLREGS, and are probably unikely to have a desire to learn them.

A problem not just restricted to racing dinghies of course.

 

[Burnham Bob]

It's a brave man that relies on the COLREGS when faced with a large fleet of racing boats - sometimes a mix of some on port tack and some on starboard coming at you from different angles -all close together and of varying degrees of politeness.

I tend to give them a wide berth even when in the right because some of them really do believe they own the river. Not all of them, but a significant minority - hence my original reply that setting a course that's challenging does not always mean enforced close contact with other sailors.

I agree with the previous post that it's good to see youngsters out pushing themselves and their boats to the limit and having fun under the watchful eye of the safety boat. The young sailors round here yesterday were a credit to the sport - but sometimes their elders leave a little to be desired.

 

[DanTribe]

I was put about by 2 Optimists on starboard tack at the weekend. One of them was my granddaughter, and I had paid for her boat!
Blooming kids, gotta no respect.
I know I shouldn't have been sailing in the moorings, but I felt like showing off.

 

[FullCircle]

I was put about by 2 Optimists on starboard tack at the weekend. One of them was my granddaughter, and I had paid for her boat!
Blooming kids, gotta no respect.
I know I shouldn't have been sailing in the moorings, but I felt like showing off.

Excellent, stuff up Grandad at every opportunity.

 

[LONG_KEELER]

It's quite an achievement for Stone SC to be able to hold the Cadet Nationals and it would be a great pity to sour this event with hasty complaints. Many of our current top sailors have originated from this class.

Dropped off at Royal Harwich today.

Looked like there was serious 'Topper' action going on.

Loads and loads of tents and the like.

I don't know about the sailing, but the youngsters seemed to be having a great time together. Nice to see.

 

[DanTribe]

Dropped off at Royal Harwich today.

Looked like there was serious 'Topper' action going on.

Loads and loads of tents and the like.

I don't know about the sailing, but the youngsters seemed to be having a great time together. Nice to see.

My hypothesis [if that's the right word] is that very few of the kids brought up as young sailors will "go wrong" and end up looting and rioting etc.
They may upset a few of us old f@rts by getting in our way but that's a price I'm happy to pay.

 

[Cobra]

My hypothesis [if that's the right word] is that very few of the kids brought up as young sailors will "go wrong" and end up looting and rioting etc.
They may upset a few of us old f@rts by getting in our way but that's a price I'm happy to pay.

HEAR, HEAR!! Sailing should be made compulsory on the school curriculum! Well...it was an option at my school!

 

[Croc]

I have read the thread with interest. I have a fast motor cruiser but I have been dinghy racing for over fifty years. I have raced at Stone and enjoyed it. There is plenty of room and no restricted visibility.
It appears that a motor boat was driving through a dinghy fleet...motor sailing is motorboating is not? Obviously he was not concentrating and became involved with a dinghy legitimately racing where it was entitled to be.
Fortunately no real harm was done and maybe the OP has learnt his lesson and will pay more attention next time and the young sailor will be more wary of the other craft on the water.
Leaving aside the point about whether or not the OP had been showing the right signals if the sailing boat had not been a tiny 10ft child's boat but had instead been a bloody great powerful keel boat with ten beefy guys on the rail would he have been so vociferous and probably incorrectly self-righteous?
As other forumites have said I am delighted that there was a large fleet of young people out on there enjoying themselves in testing conditions and some of them may have been behaving less than wisely....but that is part of the fun of being young. I was sailing in a fleet of older sailors last week and some of the the best and most experienced sailors were also behaving like prats... c'est la vie.

 

[sailorman]

I have read the thread with interest. I have a fast motor cruiser but I have been dinghy racing for over fifty years. I have raced at Stone and enjoyed it. There is plenty of room and no restricted visibility.
It appears that a motor boat was driving through a dinghy fleet...motor sailing is motorboating is not? Obviously he was not concentrating and became involved with a dinghy legitimately racing where it was entitled to be.
Fortunately no real harm was done and maybe the OP has learnt his lesson and will pay more attention next time and the young sailor will be more wary of the other craft on the water.
Leaving aside the point about whether or not the OP had been showing the right signals if the sailing boat had not been a tiny 10ft child's boat but had instead been a bloody great powerful keel boat with ten beefy guys on the rail would he have been so vociferous and probably incorrectly self-righteous?
As other forumites have said I am delighted that there was a large fleet of young people out on there enjoying themselves in testing conditions and some of them may have been behaving less than wisely....but that is part of the fun of being young. I was sailing in a fleet of older sailors last week and some of the the best and most experienced sailors were also behaving like prats... c'est la vie.

well put

 

[Marmalade]

I'm not clear (to reply to the original post) what you mean when you complain about the dinghy being in the channel. In that part of the river there are two starboard hand buoys (Thirstlet and No 1) which define the north side of the river - but nothing defining the southern side at all, other than the shore. You're surely not suggesting that the sailing club run an open championship in the moorings?

The only thing that would define that part of of the Blackwater as "a channel" is your direction along it. Travelling north / south in the estuary seems to me to be at least as legitimate as travelling east / west.

We should probably have some sort of rules to govern which boats give way to which in situations like this...

 

[Cobra]

We should probably have some sort of rules to govern which boats give way to which in situations like this...

I apply a bit of common courtesy! If there is a boat closing on me and they are racing and I am pottering with nowhere to get to in a hurry, then I find a sensible way of giving the other boat(s) space! It doesn't hurt to give a racing boat clear water and passage IF are able to. Obviously if you are constrained by draft and they are not, then slowing yourself to as near to stop as you safely can and let them treat you as an obstruction on the race course.

But why get up tight? I go afloat to relax not put my blood pressure through the roof!

 

[Elemental]

I have read the thread with interest. I have a fast motor cruiser but I have been dinghy racing for over fifty years. I have raced at Stone and enjoyed it. There is plenty of room and no restricted visibility.
It appears that a motor boat was driving through a dinghy fleet...motor sailing is motorboating is not? Obviously he was not concentrating and became involved with a dinghy legitimately racing where it was entitled to be.
Fortunately no real harm was done and maybe the OP has learnt his lesson and will pay more attention next time and the young sailor will be more wary of the other craft on the water.
Leaving aside the point about whether or not the OP had been showing the right signals if the sailing boat had not been a tiny 10ft child's boat but had instead been a bloody great powerful keel boat with ten beefy guys on the rail would he have been so vociferous and probably incorrectly self-righteous?
As other forumites have said I am delighted that there was a large fleet of young people out on there enjoying themselves in testing conditions and some of them may have been behaving less than wisely....but that is part of the fun of being young. I was sailing in a fleet of older sailors last week and some of the the best and most experienced sailors were also behaving like prats... c'est la vie.

+1. Damn good post.

 

[ianc1200]

Just a gentle point; most would rather get out of the way of youngsters/dinghy racers etc, especially when we're going nowhere in particular slowly. But I too have been caught out in my very slow old wooden motor boat off Stone, and several other places, where there is simply nowhere to go; get out of the way of one boat and you can be in the way of another, stop or go backwards similar issues.
A few years ago on the Deben close to Woodbridge in narrow/shallow waters two girls in a racing Mirror came close, I avoided course, then they tacked and went under my bow; I lost my cool and let them know how close they were to causing an accident. The safety rib followed me up to find out what had happened and apologised on their behalf and said the kids would be warned about getting too close to larger boats.

OTOH, now back on the upper Thames and dinghy sailors have nothing on the antics of some of the rowers on the Thames.