Saturday 4 July

Osborne Bay on a beautiful sunny day with a light SSW wind. The 2009 rally contenders were cruising the start line. Ariam, Blue Lady, Sea Dream of Hamble, Spirit of Fairfax and Wylde Oyster were all there. Celestra, Glissando and Ulysses we missed having you with us this year.

5 minutes to go, 2 minutes to go. A blast of the start horn from FastnetPhil aboard Blue Lady. Sea Dream of Hamble and Wylde Oyster timed their start to perfection, Ariam and Spirit of Fairfax’s watches were obviously incorrect and were far enough over the line to deserve a ‘penalty 360 degree turn’!

Sailing Captain Gill, along with FastnetPhil, aboard the deliberately over-rated and aptly named Blue Lady, were not surprisingly lagging behind – SC Gill was to be seen heading away from the line during the crucial pre-start 2 minutes, pour encourager les autres of course!

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Some HSSC members will be aware that I have been taking part in this year’s Royal Ocean Racing Club programme to culminate in the 2009 Fastnet Race. I am Co-Skippering the campaign and you can read more about the team, the boat and our race reports at Space Race Fastnet 2009.

From Trèbes to Homps and back..via Carcassonne!!!

The weather forecasts were variable as the time for departure, courtesy of RyanAir, grew nearer. Would it be very wet, grey, cold and miserable, or the much better option and not the BBC choice… fine, warm and sunny.. how can all the forecasts be so different?

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This was the first big sail of the season, the last sail having been a shake-down of our skills two weeks previously with Robert skippering Dragonfly Too, an X-332, in East Cowes with Victor and Diana Bader Clynes as crew.  Nice boat, shame about the lack of power under engine.  Sometimes one finds interesting passages in the log book on the boats we charter, this was no exception and in this case, it had sailed the Eddystone Light House race.

For this Matzo sail Victor organised “Event” which is a Dufour 40, spacious, sufficient power under both sail and power.  His crew comprised Robert (Mate in a non-carnal way), Diana Abramova, Diana Bader-Clynes, Janice and Mel a new member. The weekend started with the obligatory evening meal in a local hostelry, the Jolly Sailor in Lands End Road, Burlesdon, where the vegi / fish / other food filled the gap between lunch and breakfast.

On the Saturday morning we had smoked salmon for breakfast, courtesy Victor, got ourselves ready for a gentle sail down wind towards Gosport where Sandy had organised a couple of berths in Gosport Marina for us and her boat Sea Dream, sailing with Avi and Phil plus dogs.

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From: Richard Brown, RYA Southern Region Secretary
From 1st April 2009, all Brits going to the Channel Islands will need to have their own health cover.
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The 2009 inaugural Michael Doctors Memorial Lecture
featuring
Tom Cunliffe

The day of the first Michael Doctors lecture was drawing close and the participation numbers were looking really good.

It was clear that the renowned mariner Cunliffe was proving exactly the exciting attraction that the club had hoped for. Current and past members alike together with friends and family of the late Michael Doctors were due to meet for this auspicious occasion… and then…down came the SNOW********. Tons and tons of the white fluffy stuff! Very pretty; but then the reality began to slowly dawn upon me. “This is not good; this definitely doesn’t bode well for keeping up attendances”, and sure enough a few worrying calls and e-mails began to arrive.
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January 20th 2009

Withdrawal symptoms were clearly getting to members of the High Seas as more than 15 eager beavers got together at Bernays Hall, Stanmore for a workshop session on the much sought-after art of correctly manoeuvring your canvas in order to progress in a forwardly direction with appropriate momentum according to the prevailing airflow over the aerofoils! Or to put it more simply; setting your sails correctly for the prevailing wind conditions etc!

Sandy came prepared with tea, coffee, cakes and biccies, while Phil came prepared with pieces of wood, pieces of canvas and pieces of string which, when all assembled together, created a dinky little sailing rig that could be “propelled” by warm air flow from electric fan! Perfect! Read the rest…