Budworth Sailing Club

Armada Mirror - whats that? For 2008 Budworth has the loan  of one of the very latest GRP mirrors - and it’s for you to borrow, use and try out. It has a new rig (1 piece mast) , a centre main and is called Jammy Dodger!! Please contact Graeme Bristow to try it out or borrow it to take on the circuit…

(Photo Courtesy Peter Cull)

Open Meeting date Put Saturday 12th July in your diary now. It should be warm, friendly racing. Dads and mums very welcome to sail with you

Junior Training  for 2008 We have big plans this year with 6 peope in the process of being trained as RYA qualified “club racing coaches”. Make sure you are part of this great opportunity.

Nationals These are in Llandudno over the weekend May 24-27 . PLease see the mirror  class association website for more details.

So come on down and join a friendly club and a friendly class.
Graeme

Some great sailing in testing conditions this year in the Budworth Mirror & Optimist Open.
Also many excellent photos were taken by Peter Cull, a Budworth S.C. member, and a small selection can be seen here in our Mirror and Optimist Gallery Albums.
Many more are available to view (or purchase!) on Peter’s web-site www.petercull.com.
Many thanks for permission to use them, Peter!

What a lot is happening.

Junior Training: The club will be prioritising mirror race training this year so please support this. The mirrors are the only junior class where we can teach team work, spinnaker handling and introduce young members who feel more comfortable sailing with someone else in the boat. It also helps the club feed the adult classes.

Training Info Evening: As described below, please come along. I’m going to hear Andrew Brown who could well be the next Ben Ainslie so what an opportunity to hear him talk.

Armada Mirror: I now have looked over the mirror, it’s in my garage but will soon be at Budworth for you to borrow and try out. It will be out every Sunday morning as part of the training fleet.

Coaches: 6 of us spent last weekend studying and practicing for our RYA club race coaches certificate. I was amazed at what we learned and practiced. We now have an enviable team and I believe a unique opportunity for club members to gain outstanding coaching.

Help: In running the courses we would welcome your help on Sunday mornings. It will be a fantastic opportunity for you to see your child develop and learn some useful skills for your own sailing. If you are able please let Fraser Kerr or myself know or just turn up and lend a hand.

Boats: Key to success for me is having all the Mirrors at the club in full working order early in the season. The season is just 2 weeks away so now would be an excellent time to dust it off, fix all the things that need fixing and get it down there. I will help where ever I can on this be it gluing, screwing, setting up, trailing etc to get them down at the club.

Well that’s all from me - with you we can make the mirror fleet something special this year. My aspiration is lots of mirror sailing, training and kids enjoying and learning.

Graeme:

The day dawned warm and grey without much wind.Fortified by copious quantities of tea and toast from the galley, the crews of 26 boats – 13 Optimists and 13 Mirrors launched onto the Mere for the first race. The wind was forecast to pick up a little and settled into a light south to southeasterly.

The Optimists started 5 minutes after the Mirrors following the same course set with two beats across the Mere.
The Mirrors spread out in the testing light wind conditions.
By contrast a hole in the wind appeared at one of the windward marks, bunching the Optimist fleet. The course needed to be shortened to ensure that lunch could be taken at a reasonable time. Given the conditions there was no “rescuing” needed but the rescue boats earned their keep by encouraging the Oppie back markers with coaching advice to help keep the boats moving!!
It was great to see how much the young sailors from Budworth and beyond were enjoying the sailing.
On such a grey day it would have been understandable for helms, some as young as six, to become disheartened.
Despite their inexperience all kept in touch with the field and were able to finish.
At lunchtime, there was a happy buzz as everyone tucked into bowls of steaming pasta stoking the boiler in readiness for the two afternoon races.

The course for the Mirrors remained the same for both afternoon races.
However, the Optimist’s course evolved from a short two beat course into a simple triangle as the wind dropped off before the last race.In the Optimists, Max Spedding from Dee SC sailed faultlessly to win all three races and the Open trophy. James Clermetson was second overall after a second, third and fourth. Tom Joesbury was just pushed into third place after coming third, second and fifth. Rhona Kerr and Ben Fullard made a late assault on the podium with second and third respectively in the last race.

In the Mirrors, the Escritts from Yorkshire Dales SC took pole position followed closely by Brendan Sweeney & Max Ligema from Royal Windermere YC. The Grey family from Royal Windermere YC took third.

The day was made a great success by the many helpers - those who toiled in the galley and bar, the OOD and those in the rescue boats who made the best of difficult conditions for the younger helms, and those doing the registration and paperwork.
The trophy table looked as if there should have been security guards in place to protect it!!
Perhaps the Budworth Open 2007 medal will sit next to Olympic medals in the future??

What do you do when you have just finished a day’s hard sailing?
Jump in off the jetty of course!

Many thanks to Peter Cull for his excellent photography.