Swallow Yachts Association
Swallow Yachts Forum => Sailing and Events => Topic started by: Graham W on 19 Nov 2012, 20:57
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Has been fixed as in previous years to coincide with half term and the Spring Bank Holiday: 24th to 31st May (Saturday to Saturday).
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And it's now on the events calendar...
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It may, or may not, be regarded as relevant to this ultra-forward planning, but my paper tells me today that the world is due to come to an end on 21st December....er, that's 2012....??
Michael
PS Martin Luther is supposed to have said that, if he was told the world would come to an end tomorrow, he would still plant an apple tree today. (I'm not entirely clear what point he was trying to make, but it might be relevant to signing up for a raid in 2014.)
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It may, or may not, be regarded as relevant to this ultra-forward planning, but my paper tells me today that the world is due to come to an end on 21st December....er, that's 2012....??
Ah yes, but only in Belize and Honduras. Scotland's immune, since (as far as I know and 'The Wicker Man' apart) they're not Mayans and don't make human sacrifices. Well, not very often anyway.
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I understand Alex Salmond has cancelled the proposed 2012 end of the world because that would spoil turnout for the 2014 referendum....
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It may, or may not, be regarded as relevant to this ultra-forward planning, but my paper tells me today that the world is due to come to an end on 21st December....er, that's 2012.
It looks like we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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2014 event entry prices are being held at this year's levels, thanks to an increased level of interest in the event.
If you want to stay in one of the six cabins in Martin's excellent new accommodation barge Ros Crana, which follows the raid along the Great Glen, you are advised to book early. Two cabins have already been reserved. There will be further cabins available on two of the larger Taransay class cabin cruisers. Accommodation costs may have to increase a little to reflect what the club is charged by the providers.
Dates as usual have been fixed to coincide with the late spring bank holiday and half term - 24th to 31st May (Saturday to Saturday).
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Two ensuite twin cabins remain on Ros Crana.
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Ros Crana is now fully booked. Lots of space available on the two Taransay class cabin cruisers, although I understand that if you are much over 6' tall, you may find the berths a little short.
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Sounds like turnout is again going to be good in 2014. I'm still recovering from this year too much to think about next year! How many boats are now entered for 2014?
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Four, I think.
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Make that six.
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Graham
Absolutely fantastic pics of SC13 (on the appropriate thread!), which lead me on to ask - there is, is there not, a minimum boat length stipulated for Sail Caledonia entries? (I sort of looked for, but couldn't find, the regs etc on previous threads about SC. A reference to wherever they are on the forum would be fine.)
Michael
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"Entry is open to boats of between 5 and 9 metres LOA........ subject to the Organising Authority reserving the right to refuse admission to any boat without giving reason. The Organising Authority may also admit boats of LOA slightly less than 5m at its discretion."
They are mostly worried about small boats being swamped on 20 mile long Loch Ness, where the waves were over a metre high, short and very nasty in 2011. With a big widely dispersed fleet, it would be difficult for the safety boats, even though there are a lot of them, satisfactorily to cover smaller and more vulnerable competitors.
The fleet splits on the first day on Loch Ness - one lot doing the gruelling Loch Ness Challenge, which is one and a half times the length of the loch, and the others racing on the southern part of the loch. The Challenge is sometimes described as by invitation only. Even if you want to do it, the organisers have to be convinced that both the boat and its crew are capable of completing it without assistance. Only two boats (both BR20's) took part in 2012 but this year it was seven.
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Confirmed entries so far include two BR20's and a Drascombe, plus Caledonian Yawl Elsie, 2012's overall winner. And most impressively, someone is coming all the way from Australia to compete.
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There are now nine confirmed entries, of which three are Drascombes and only two are Swallow Boats (Bill Rollo's 'Askari' and mine). Once again there is a trophy kindly sponsored by Swallow Boats for the fastest BayRaider in the event. The Drascombes are competing for a case of wine, which may explain their extra interest!
The most exotic entry is a lateen-rigged bette marseillaise from France, of the sort painted by van Gogh (see below).
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We are trying to encourage more people to become involved in these sort of raids and have today sent out a press release to all the sailing magazines that we could think of, plus past and future participants in the raid, sailing clubs, raid boat makers, schools, colleges, etc etc.
The text reads:
"SAIL CALEDONIA TO SPONSOR A 2014 RAID BOAT
Sail Caledonia, the annual sail & oar raid through the Great Glen of Scotland, is inviting applications for a sponsored boat entry for next year’s race, which will take place from 24th to 31st May 2014.
The crew will provide their own boat, safety gear and camping equipment. Once there, their only costs will be for meals. Sail Caledonia will waive the raid entry fees and will pay for launching, camping and canal licence fees.
The successful applicants could be from a school or college, part of a community-based scheme or looking to raise money for a charitable cause.
Applications should be sent to info@sailcaledonia.org by no later than 31st January 2014. The race committee will decide the winning application shortly thereafter.
The application should include the following details:
• Type of boat
• Likely number and age of crew
• Experience of skipper
• Why the crew feel that they should get the sponsored place
For more details on the raid, including what to expect and pictures from past raids, please see http://www.sailcaledonia.org/"
The original announcement is attached. If you can think of any deserving causes, please bring this to their attention. The sponsorship for a crew of four is worth £1,265.
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There are now 14 boats entered (including a large French contingent), which is significantly more than this time last year. There is an absolute limit to the number of boats that we can look after and get through the locks, so if you're thinking of entering, even as a camper, don't leave it too late. We're expecting several new bookings when January's 'Water Craft' is published.
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Vagabond is now registered as being part of Sail Caledonia 2014. Just a cameo supporting role, I think, not racing.........
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Great to have you along Rob. If there's wind on the day, you should at least consider racing in the long distance Loch Ness Challenge. The two Dutch Valks that have entered Sail Caledonia next year are seriously fast sailing boats (faster than the BayRaiders) and it would be nice to give them something to worry about! See http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=5687
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I've just registered!
Will be just me and 'Psalter' my beloved BR20.. though beware.. she is turbo charged with a furling staysail.. and who knows what other devious modifications I can come up with between now and then ..
So, am looking for anyone who fancies crewing with an ageing fat baldy bloke for the week? Although you must be female, single, very wealthy with interests in the brewing industry and of course an inordinate obsession with sailing....
At the moment I understand I am booked on one of the Taransay cruisers.. a motor boat? urggh spit!
See you there...
Andy
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Really good to have your turbo-charged BayRaider taking part for the first time Andy.
There are now 17 boats registered, of which six are Swallow Boats. Matthew Peacock's 'Gladys' is back for another year and Rory Clarke's as yet unnamed (and unbuilt) BRe is also entered.
We are already up to the same numbers as last year, with six months to go, which is really pleasing. And the motorised sleeping accommodation, which we were worried was going to be a drain on resources, is getting perilously close to fully booked and will therefore cover its costs
I think it's going to be a great event, even better than last year. If you're thinking of coming, please don't leave it too late to secure a place. I want loads of Swallow Boats taking part.
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So, am looking for anyone who fancies crewing with an ageing fat baldy bloke for the week? Although you must be female, single, very wealthy with interests in the brewing industry and of course an inordinate obsession with sailing....
Andy
Hi, Andy.
Be careful what you wish for. At your age it could be dangerous!
P.S.
Does your stays'l help down wind in light airs? (Photo shows "Psalter" at the the Semaine du Golfe 2013, overtaken by a Cardigan Bay Lugger in just those conditions ....and , yes, it WAS the only time it happened!)
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So, am looking for anyone who fancies crewing with an ageing fat baldy bloke for the week? Although you must be female, single, very wealthy with interests in the brewing industry and of course an inordinate obsession with sailing....
Andy
Hi, Andy.
Be careful what you wish for. At your age it could be dangerous!
Jody Foster, Stella Tennent, Fatima Whitbread?
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Hi Graham
Re - racing - at this distance (of time) I think it's unlikely as
(a) it would mean I would have to learn the rules
(b) those Valks look a bit mean
and (c) if the the wind is SW, it won't be Vagabonds best point of sailing.... has anyone a large down wind sail for a BC 23 that we could borrow?
On the other hand, who knows what might happen on the day!
Rob J
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Graham. I was thinking along the lines of a threesome with Daphne and Lulu Guinness, as long as that bloke Karl Lagerfeld keeps his nose out ..
Alice Beer and Shirley Bassey would be very welcome too ...As for Katy Perry and Susy Perry .. well, that's one for each tack!
Amy Winehouse would be good to knock out a tune for us in the evenings.. providing she stays off the single malt's.. and Martini Navratilvoa may be useful for banging a few balls about. (Careful!).. Enough already..
Tony. Yes the stays'l works very well in light airs - in fact I had more of a roach stitched in just for that.. If only I had that in Morbihan I wouldn't have suffered the indignity of watching you slowly overhaul us and leave us bobbing in your wake..! Very well sailed though. I put it down to a back eddy close into that island....
And what do you mean 'at my age'! I know I've had a hard paper round but I'm actually only 58!
Rob. I will be taking my asymmetric spinnaker - if I am sailing on my lonesome then I won't be needing it and you are very welcome to make use of it, should be fairly easy to rig on your 23 and could be quite interesting?
Regards
Andy
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(a) it would mean I would have to learn the rules
That's mostly "Try not to collide with each other too often"
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Thanks for the inside track on the rules, Graham, I'll try to remember it!
And thanks, Andy, for the offer of the assymetric.
It just so happens that I had a long conversation with our leader today on the same subject. It seems that rigging one would be not too difficult, especially as there already is a mounting for a spinnaker block near the top of the mast. Matt reckons he could supply me with the whole kit and caboodle for an almost reasonable amount of money, so I may even have my own by the time of the raid. I'll let you know!
In the meantime, I'm contemplating stiffening the rig by retrofitting the spreaders and shrouds that were on the display BC23 at Southampton.
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This year I had one gentle gunwale to gunwale touch (my fault) and was once rammed up the mizzen (not a euphemism and not my fault); the other skipper in the first incident was, for my taste, a bit too bothered and vocal about the rules so I recommend not reading the rule book or if you do then keep quiet about them! Indeed the SC Notice of Race says:
"Sail Caledonia is intended to be a relaxed event and it is anticipated that many skippers will not
have detailed knowledge of the RRS. Accordingly, we encourage skippers to sail in a sporting
manner bearing this in mind."
Don't forget that spinnakers are not allowed on Sail Caledonia:
"Specialised racing sails, including spinnakers and other similar sails are not generally permitted."
Pedantically, I'm not sure that I agree that a spinnaker is a specialised racing sail but I guess the aim is to keep the playing field as level as possible despite the wide variation of boats entered.
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the other skipper in the first incident was, for my taste, a bit too bothered and vocal about the rules
I remember him shouting "WATER" at someone in a very loud voice - it may have even been at you Jonathan. One of my waggish crewmates pointed at the loch and remarked that "yes, there's a lot of it about". He also told me that where he comes from, you only shout "water" as a warning to your own helmsman when you are at imminent risk of going aground.
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Thanks for the enlightenment about the meaning of water - I had assumed that someone's whisky was a bit strong for their taste and they didn't like ice.
But I can see the protest already - is an assymetric a spinnaker?
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is an assymetric a spinnaker?
I'm afraid so.
The Loch Ness Challenge course is the full length of the loch and two thirds of the way back, so if the wind is from the SW, the return leg will be a beat. In 2012 and this year, the wind was from the NE.
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The January/February issue of 'WaterCraft' has just arrived in my post. There are four pages on each of Sail Caledonia (by Kathy Mansfield) and the English Raid (by Robin Popham). Needless to say, Swallow Boats feature in both. To quote Kathy Mansfield "This year's 'Scottish Raid' did feel like a Swallowboats works outing"!
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I like the first picture showing three BRs side by side (from left to right Turaco III, Sunbow III and Mallory). Apart from being a nice shot of BRs, it sums up some of the spirit of the event and also shows the fickle winds we had on Loch Oich - Mallory's flag is blowing in a different direction to Turaco's.
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This is the picture http://www.pbase.com/kathymansfield/image/150619133
For some bizarre reason, the photo reminds me of a field full of charging bullocks!
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Interesting picture. It does show how much more sail you get set high up with a fully battened main, compared to the simpler straight luffed gunter main.
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It was also only on SC that I also noticed the head of the fully battened sail is slightly lower than on the gunter. Presumably because the cut with the battens gives more sail area and hence less height is needed.
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It was also only on SC that I also noticed the head of the fully battened sail is slightly lower than on the gunter. Presumably because the cut with the battens gives more sail area and hence less height is needed.
The BR20, according to the official SB specification, has a 53cm (7%) higher air draught compared to the BRe but a 0.7m2 (4%) smaller sail area.
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There are now 21 boats registered for Sail Caledonia, including two BRe's, five BR20's and Rob's BC23.
Surprisingly, we're having trouble drumming up applications for the sponsored place.
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We're full!
There are now 23 boats registered for this year's raid, plus two more provisionally registered. This means that we have reached the maximum number of 25 boats that we can safely deal with and fit in the canal locks.
If you were thinking of entering, boats sometimes drop out so we have started a waiting list on a first come, first served basis. Don't delay if you want to be included in this list.
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We are going to offer a free place in the raid to the Shetland Yawl 'New Dawn' and its crew. See the attached press announcement for more detail.
Of the two provisional bookings, one has decided not to participate until next year, which means that the Drascombe on the wait list now has a place.
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Just in case anyone out there likes acting on impulse, we have space for another boat on the raid because of a just-notified cancellation. See http://www.sailcaledonia.org/page6.html
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We're looking for a camping manager/driver for the event, as unfortunately Sandie won't be able to do it this year. Last year's job description (which needs a bit of updating) is attached.
The key thing here is that it is a fairly flexible job. We need someone to be ready to do anything else that being the driver and support vehicle might be called to do. Getting outboard petrol, taking people to hospital (hopefully not), getting food shopping, helping when one of the team has forgotten something. When we’re at Foyers (Loch Ness) for example this can involve quite a bit of driving at the end of the day. Emptying the Porta Potties is probably the least pleasant part of the duties although we may be hiring Portaloos for the campers, in which case that part of the job will be removed.
It is not as glamorous as driving a safety boat, so in addition to free board & lodging for the week it should also attract a bit of remuneration. It might suit a spouse or friend who wants to come but doesn't like sailing. If anyone has any ideas for a willing & cheerful participant, please let me know.
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That was an excellent week in the Great Glen. If I have time I might do a write-up for the site's blog. In the meantime I have added a gallery and uploaded my pictures:
http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/?page_id=449&album=4&gallery=21
Perhaps others can share their pictures too? Don't forget *not* to select the "resize to 800x600" checkbox when uploading. The web site will still show a resized image without this checked and your full size image will remain available for people to view that if they wish.
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Thanks for the photos, Jonathan. I look forward to your write up and my memories of the event are extremely blurred. I'll add my photo's to the album when I can find them!
Rob J
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Thanks Jonathan.. for the pictures and your company for the week. It truly was a memorable time.
The picture of 'Psalter's' centreboard was quite some accomplishment as it required waiting for a suitable gust to get the gunn'ls suitably buried enough for Jonathan to lean over the windward side to get the picture.. Why? You may well ask. We were having a conversation about the peat staining the water and the white centreboard demonstrated this very well.. and it was a long race... and we had run out of tea and hobnobs.... !
What hasn't been mentioned yet, it appears, is the congratulations to Matthew and Andrew in (BR20) 'Gladys' for winning the Swallow Boats trophy this year. A magnificent effort on their part with some excellent sailing. In fact well done to all the Swallow Boat crews up there for some fantastic sailing (and rowing!). I think we certainly left an impression!
Morbihan next year?
Andy
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Congratulations to Matthew and Andrew on Gladys, showing us just what can be done without modifications of any sort, unless you count a twisted mast and slightly loose tabernacle! If the wind blew, she was uncatchable and it was a memorable sight to see her disappearing into the far distance, with a horizontal Matthew cantilevered over the gunwales. The final detailed results have not been published yet but I suspect that Gladys's score was very close to that of overall winner Elsie, a Caledonian Yawl that also won in 2012.
For those that are interested, there will also be several galleries of pictures posted on the Sail Caledonia website in due course.
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I want to echo Graham's comments - Matthew and Andrew out-sailed us all and were generally uncatchable. It will be interesting to see the final scores; I hope Gladys's time for race 2 was reinstated as promised because that must have accounted for about 4 places/points!
I took a bit of video of Rob's BC23 sailing up Loch Ness in Wednesday's race and here it is:
http://youtu.be/IXkXftlr30o
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Sail Caledonia was great fun. The best things about the week were the good-natured company, the laughs, the romantic Highland atmosphere (including pipe music) and the food. The racing was the icing on the cake. I think the general standard of singing “mud-mud, glorious mud” and Andrew’s puns could be improved though. And I’ll stay off the poetry next time.
We very much appreciate the other Bayraider crews’ kind comments and sporting behavior, given the way Gladys came from bottom-up 2 years ago (so to speak) due to Andrew’s helming world-championship dinghy expertise and nothing to do with my trans-Windermere experience. The spirit of co-operation between races was unmatched and took nothing away from the competitiveness during races, which is as it should be.
I particularly appreciate Graham’s contribution to the event, he must have spent some considerable personal time quietly on administrative work as treasurer as well as being a generous friend and competitor during the event itself.
I’ve posted some snapshots on the gallery. If any of them are too personal for anyone’s comfort I will of course remove them! And I’ll also stick a video on Youtube when I’ve edited out the very shaky bits and 20min views of the inside of a halyard bag.
Matthew
BR20 Gladys
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I echo Matthew's remarks about the work put in by Graham (and the other members of the committee and their helpers) to make the whole event work extremely well and also about the spirit of help and friendliness amongst the participants, desipte lots of shouts of "starboard" during the races! And thanks, Johnathan, for the video clip of Vagabond, taken when we were in full sail!
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John Mac's photos are now up http://broombank.phanfare.com/6572043
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Just before we close on this subject (and I see that Sail Caledonia 2015 already has its' own thread, I attach a track taken from my GPS of the taking that went on up the first half of Loch Ness. Whilst the more keen members of SC2014 (including most of the Swallow contingent) got up at first sparrow f**t to compete in the Loch Ness challenge, the more gentlemanly amongst us (eg lazier) awoke normally to sail half the distance. Unlike the first batch, we found quite a bit of wind (going the wrong way) and a taking challenge ensued between Psalter (BC) and Vagabond. Initially Vagabond was in the lead (helped by the fact that Psalter crossed the start line too early) and was surging ahead. The wind increased and Vagabond started to become difficult to keep on a steady course, so I took in a reef. It was thought at the end of the race that it was this (coupled with some energetic leaning out by Johnathan) that enabled Psalter to take the lead and win by a fair margin. The track reveals something else - the data shows that the SOG over AB and CD was the same (5kn) but I clearly had a"Senior Moment" shortly after wards!
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FYI, all the results are now on the Sail Caledonia website:
http://www.sailcaledonia.org/page40.html
I noticed there is a mistake in some of the placings for race 4 and have let John McP know about that.
The results for class 4 (where most Swallow Boats were entered) are:
1. Gladys
2. Turaco III
3. Psalter
4. Askari
5. Skylark
6. Gobhlan-G
The overall results aren't published but totting up the scores it was close between Elsie (the overall winner) and Gladys, with (I think) 40 and 46 points respectively.
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Race positions can be calculated in all sorts of different ways but allowing for the fact that Elsie didn't take part in the Loch Ness Challenge, Gladys was probably fastest from sea to shining sea, with Turaco second fastest. Once again, rowing prowess played an important part in the majority of races - even several of the sailing ones! If they were still around, I'm sure that the ancient Vikings would be impressed with how well BayRaiders perform.