Brightlingsea One Design

The great BOD Regatta weekend on 4 and 5 June is almost here and at last the wind is finally going to drop and we look all set for two brilliant days of racing.

You can now download the Notice Of Race and Sailing Instructions and please would everyone make their Entry Online in advance right away to help us avoid paperwork on the day and so we know how many bangers and burgers Marianne needs to buy for the BBQ!

Your entry fee of £35 per boat includes 3 BBQ tickets and additional guest tickets should be booked using the online entry form for £7.50 each.

The schedule for the Regatta is as follows:

The Committee Boat will be Nick Readings’ big black RIB and we will also have Nick’s second RIB plus one of the BSC RIBs with us.  Race Officer will be Piers Lambert with Nick as Assistant Race Officer.  As always the Readings family will be out in force to help us plus we have Graham Chasney, John Paxman, Colin & Pam Willett, Matt and various others very kindly giving up their weekend to help us.

The race area will be out in the Estuary and Piers/Nick will broadcast their location to you on VHF Channel M1/37.  You must you have your radios with you and well charged for this weekend as you will be required to sign on and report retirements by VHF and the Race Officer has the option to provide you with additional general information by VHF during the day. Failure to sign on by VHF will be penalised by a £10 penalty payable to BODOA funds!

The broad plan, weather permitting, is to do two short windward leeward races followed by a Pyefleet Week course race on Saturday.  On Sunday we will try for the same, but unless we are very lucky with the wind it may be that we only have time to do one windward leeward followed by a Pyefleet Week course. Laminated Course Cards will be available at Registration. Please read the SIs carefully for all the information on how course information will be displayed, etc.

The 2016 BOD Regatta Weekend will take place on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 June and will be jointly hosted by Brightlingsea Sailing Club and the Colne Yacht Club.  The event will feature two days of racing, a Fleet BBQ on Saturday immediately after racing at BSC and a Prize Giving on Sunday immediately after racing at CYC.

Racing will commence at 2pm on both days with Committee Boat starts and a combination of short windward leeward and round the cans courses.  A special Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions will be issued shortly.

The entry fee for the weekend will be £35 which includes three tickets to the BBQ on Saturday night.  Additional guest tickets for the BBQ can be ordered at £7.50 each.

Click here to submit your entries.  Please note that entries will close at 5pm on Friday 3 June 2016.

We already have 15 teams who have confirmed their intention to take part in this event so it’s going to be a great weekend.  If anyone wants to race but needs crew or other help to make it happen please contact Class Secretary Fiona Brown on 07711 718470 or fiona.brown@fionabrown.com who will do her best to help.

Congratulations to Danny Fox and the Mersea Boys in C8 Egret on winning Sunday’s CYC run Carstairs Cup race.  Five BODs came to the line in a light southerly to race using the new CYC course cards for the first time.  Having signed on in person or by VHF confirming how many people they had on board (as per the new CYC requirements), they made a very close start on a line laid between the BOD buoy and the Committee Boat off Batemans (which line to be used was signalled via the white board on the Committee Boat).

The first leg was a great down tide beat out to Cocum and it was nip and tuck all the way with places changing every time the boats crossed tacks. Initially Geoff Gritton in C56 Never Say Never had the slight advantage with C11 Grayling helmed by John Payne second and Egret third, C53 White Spirit with Mark White rounded fourth and C51 Grethe, being helmed this week by Alan Hicks, was fifth .  From Cocum the course took the fleet across to Gazelet and then on a long run against the tide to No 10, which saw Egret get through to first followed by Grayling with Never Say Never now in third.  The beat back to Cocum didn’t bring any place changes but then a foul tide run all the way past Mersea Stone to Batemans had Never Say Never and White Spirit exchanging places.  Initially White Spirit sailed through into third, but then misjudged their gybe allowing Never Say Never to get back through.

From Batemans it was only a short beat with the tide into the finish where Egret took line honours by almost two minutes.  Just ninety three seconds separated the rest of the fleet with Grayling second, Never Say Never third, White Spirit fourth and Grethe fifth.

Our thanks to the Readings family, Graham Chasney and their crew for providing a great race.

Start time 14.15

The new Course Cards for Colne Yacht Club BOD Racing are now available and will come in to effect from today, 22 May 2016, with the Corsairs Cup.  Apologies that these weren’t ready for the first CYC race of the season, but please ensure that you now either print off an laminate the new course card yourself or collect one from Fiona Brown (call 07711 718470) or the Committee Boat.  A donation of £1 per course card (same price as the BSC Course Cards) is requested to cover printing and lamination costs and to add a little something to class coffers.

Please note the highlighted NOTES on the bottom of the card reminding us all to go through the Fixed Finish Line (FL in the actual courses) and to sign on and off with the race committee by VHF.

Please make sure you destroy all your old blue course cards (with the hand written courses list).

Huge thanks must to Alan Hicks, Piers Lambert, Malcolm Goodwin and Jeremy Newman for the work they did to revise the courses to ensure the best possible chance of windward leeward legs and to ensure that we avoid mark rounding clashes with the BSC course card when both clubs are racing at the same time.

Click here to download the 2016 CYC Course Cards

As always Malcolm and the team at Park & Ride will do their very best to ensure they have the right number of tractor drivers and launching helpers on duty for our racing, but please would everyone who uses the facility let Malcolm know in advance which races they expect to compete in.  We have at least fifteen boats based at P&R this year so your help with this will give us the best chance of all getting launched and recovered promptly.

Thanks all.

Good news folks.  The sun is coming back just in time for the second Thursday night race of the season and the weather looks good for our first BOD run out with BSC too.

The forecast for Thursday night is for glorious sunshine with temperatures of around 19 degrees, a NE wind in the upper teens and the tide is just after 4pm so we will still have sufficient water for decent racing.

Sunday 15th May will see us officially racing with BSC for the first time in the Cormorant Cup 1 race which will start from the BSC line from 2pm.  Although overcast the forecast is for dry weather with a NNW breeze in the mid to upper teens so we should get more great racing.

If any BOD sailors need help to get their boats out on the water do please contact Fi on fiona.brown@fionabrown.com or 07711 718470 as we are keen to see as many boats out as possible.

And don’t forget that we have the Big BOD Regatta coming up on the weekend of 4 and 5 June which will be a perfect warm up for what promises to be a really competitive season ahead.

The first official BOD race of the season took place on Sunday 8 May with the Eric Dent Cup which started from the CYC Batemans line at 14.15 in glorious hot sunshine and a lovely easterly breeze.  Despite only four boats coming to the line there was still a fair bit of mayhem at the start as the girls in Grethe had failed to check their watch was correct and were still half way up Pyefleet when the gun when, and Storm Petrel had not received notification of a slight change to the line arrangement and was over early so forced to return.  Fortunately Bidi and Never Say Never had both made good starts and set off side by side with a significant gap back to Grethe and then Storm Petrel bringing up the rear.

Down the first reach out to Cocum Bidi and Never Say Never were jostling for position which allowed Grethe and Storm Petrel to make up ground.  The second mark of the course was Gazelet, but finding the mark proved something of a challenge which Bidi cottoned onto quickest, allowing them to open up a significant lead.  Storm Petrel was next to spot the mark and pulled right up to Never Say Never, but Grethe had completely over stood leaving them running back into the mark from down tide putting them completely out of the running.

For the remainder of the race Bidi stretched out her lead enjoying the champagne sailing conditions whilst Never Say Never and Storm Petrel went at it hammer and tongs for second place.  Behind them the Grethe girls stuck at it but with no hope of catching up decided it was time to break out the Prosseco on the final reach.

At the line Bidi sailed by Colin, Dan and Pam Willett finished with an impressive 3 minutes and 9 seconds lead.  In the closing minutes Never Say Never had managed to sneak ahead of Storm Petrel and they crossed the line almost a minute ahead to claim second place on the water.  Unfortunately it transpired that Geoff Gritton, Derick Gentry and Chris Walker in Never Say Never had made the classic early season mistake of forgetting to go through the gate between the first and second laps and were forced to retire leaving Storm Petrel, sailed by Alan Hicks, Richard Ham and Jayne Bond in second.  Almost five minutes later and half a bottle of Prosseco down Grethe cruised in to take third place.

As always thanks to the Readings family and their team for running the racing for us on what proved to be one of the warmest and most beautiful first BOD races ever.  And thanks too to David & Celia Charlton for the photos taken from the cockpit of their cruising yacht.

The traditional Blessing of the Waters ceremony took place on Sunday 8 May with our very own Rev Anne Howson swopping the BOD for a smack to conduct the service. The great and the good of the town and the Cinque Ports came out in their finery for this maritime equivalent of the beating of the bounds and as you can see from our photo the BODs managed to get in on the act by launching in the middle of the ceremony.

By the time the officials had returned from their trip out to Batemans and back to bless the waters, the tide was so high that the Bishop and VIPs all had to take off their socks and shoes and roll up their trousers to get off the jetty and into the Colne Yacht Club for their lunch!

Anne has also asked us to let everyone know about a special Churches Together Songs Of Praise service that will take place at St James’s Church in the High Street this coming Sunday 15 May at 6.30pm.  The St James’ singers will lead the congregation in some favourite hymns and there will be poetry and readings to celebrate Pentecost.

Please don’t forget to collect your new course cards from BSC.  There is now a single BSC course card which incorporates the BOD Courses so you only have to remember to have one sheet for BSC and one sheet for CYC (the blue CYC course cards remain unchanged this year).

Also please note that we have new rules for use of VHFs.

Firstly every boat must carry a VHF radio with them when racing and should monitor the relevant VHF Channels which are Channel M2 for BSC and Channel M1 for CYC.

However the rules for the use of VHFs differ between the two clubs as follows:

When racing at CYC the BODs are asked to sign on by passing close to the Committee Boat and registering with them visually or by VHF, and in the event of retirement they are asked to notify the Committee Boat by VHF of their retirement.

When racing at BSC the rules require that you do not make any radio communications with the race box except in an emergency.  The rules at BSC for signing on and off have also changed as follows:

Extract From BSC Sailing Instructions 2016

At last the official BOD season is upon us.  Thursday nights start this week and with Never Say Never, Storm Petrel, White Spirit, Dulcet and Grethe all confirmed to be on the start line so we’re getting the series off to a great start.

Sunday 8 May sees the first official BOD fleet race at CYC with the Eric Dent Cup starting at 14.15.  Sunday will also feature the Town’s annual Blessing of the Waters Ceremony which will culminate with the blessing from Pioneer just as we are launching and assembling for the race.  Do look out for our very own BOD Rev Anne Howson officiating.

The weather for both Thursday and Sunday looks fantastic so come out and join the fun!

Looking ahead Thursday nights will continue to gather pace as the weather warms up. Sunday 15th May brings us our first BSC line event with the Cormorant Cup 1 starting from 14.00, Sunday 22nd May is the Corsairs Cup back at CYC at 14.15 and Sunday 29th is the new Rotary Trophy, donated by Brightlingsea & District Rotary Club, at BSC from 14.00.

The first weekend of June – 4th and 5th – is our big BOD Regatta Weekend which will be run jointly by CYC and BSC of which more soon.

See you on the water folks!