Brightlingsea One Design

The BODs are continuing to put in a great showing in the Thursday night series and as we get closer to Pyefleet Week more boats are joining these great evening races every week.

With 12 races now completed Alan Hicks and Storm Petrel is leading the series overall by 12 points from Pete Kyne in his fireball who is just one point ahead of Chris Matthews and Endeavour/Rebel in third place overall.

Also in the overall top ten are Mark White and White Spirit in sixth and John Payne and Grayling in seventh.

Check out the full results here.

Photo Courtesy of Colm O’Laoi – http://colmolaoi.wix.com/colmsphotos

It might have been Jeremy Newman’s first race of the season, and he might still be in recovery from a major knee op, but that didn’t seem to hamper him in any way in his assault on the BOD Mini Series on Sunday 20 July.

Under the watchful eye of Race Officer Barry Newman, 13 BOD teams came to the line for the three race mini series.  Race one saw the boats completing the first of three windward leeward races in a force three, but the wind dropped off to a force two for the second and third races.

This was a fantastic opportunity to tune up for Pyefleet Week and it’s clear that the competition is going to be cutthroat.  Although Jeremy and Avocet claimed victory in all races they had plenty of challengers and Chris Matthews in Rebel, Danny Fox in Egret, Dan Willet in Bidi and Malcolm Goodwin in the newly launched Cormorant were all more than on the pace.  Alan Hicks sailing Storm Petrel also had good speed and sailed well despite the fact that he was sailing one short and with a novice BOD crew.

After three races and with one discard allowed, Jeremy and Avocet claimed the top step of the podium with Rebel second, Egret third, Bidi fourth, Cormorant fifth, Storm Petrel sixth, Dulcet seventh, White Spirit eighth, Gelsama ninth, Blue Peter tenth, Jumbo Too eleventh, Ruff twelfth and Panic thirteenth.

Click here for the full results

What a fabulous evening for the BOD fleet!  Malcolm Goodwin’s newly restored C4 Cormorant and James Anderson’s brand new C55 Windsprite were both launched in front of a big crowed of family, friends, BOD sailors and the public at Brightlingsea Sailing Club on Saturday 19 July.

We’ll have a more detailed story for you shortly, but in the meantime, check out a little bit of video and some photos below and also take a look at the great images from Tim Bees over on our Facebook group.

Check out this first photo of C4 Cormorant in all her refitted glory (thanks to Geoff Gritton for the pic)! Malcolm Goodwin has spent well over 1000 hours refitting her and she is looking amazing. Her official launch party (in association with the launch of James Anderson’s C55) will take place at Brightlingsea Sailing Club at 18.30 on Saturday evening and all BOD sailors, friends and family are welcome.

Mike Hempstead reports from the BSC Summer Points racing on Sunday 13 July.  

The result on the water was a strange and for most a sad outcome for the BOD fleet in the difficult, no wind and strong ebb tide conditions,  All the fleet except Rough being over the line and only Gelasma going back to restart, being so far over.   At the time, in Gelasma, I was pretty fed up, however..things did improve….

In Gelasma we started the race almost 3 minutes behind the fleet, who were by then at the gate. However by not following the pack we sailed around the worst of the tide upwind and overtook Rough, Jumbo and Panic during the first lap.  We appeared to have good downwind speed and as the wind died under a huge black cloud, we closed up on the rest of the fleet in the creek and finished after one round in pouring rain with no wind at all.

For some reason the rest of the fleet rounded the turning mark and tried to do a second lap. All except White Spirit, who came over and suggested we might have actually won… so we quickly packed up the boat and went to the club where the OOD confirmed that we had won and Rough was second as the rest of the fleet were over the line. Wow!

Enjoying the moment on the beach at the club with my wonderful crew Anne and Eddie Howson we toasted the rest of the very wet fleet as they paraded back up the creek, being towed in by the RIB.   Funny sort of day….

Mike  BOD C18 Gelasma
looking forward to Pyefleet Week

FULL RESULTS

Volunteer Needed – Barry Newman could really use an assistant in the Committee Boat (Dug) for the BOD Mini Series this Sunday 20 July.  Anyone who can help hold up the flags, write down the finish orders and put the buoys in and out of the water would be great.  The first start is at 14.00 so you would need to meet Barry at around 13.00 (probably at the Colne YC but Barry will confirm directly).  Any Volunteers???  Contact Fi on fiona.brown@fionabrown.com.  Thanks

Don’t forget that we have a special BOD Mini Series event this Sunday 20 July.  First start time is 14.00 and racing will be run from a committee boat using windward leeward courses.

The plan is to run three relatively short, fast and furious races.  Barry Newman will be your Race Officer using his white launch Dug as your committee boat and he will be listening on Channel M2 if you want to contact him to find out where he is located.  Nick Readings has kindly offered to come out an act as support with his RIB.

It looks like we will have a really good turnout this weekend so we’ll see you all out there.

Don’t forget that we have a fantastic double launching celebration this Saturday evening, 19 July, when Malcolm Goodwin will launch the newly restored C4 Cormorant and James Anderson will launch the brand new C55.  Please be at the club for 18.30 – all BOD sailors and friends are welcome.

Huge thanks to Mark and Marianne White for hosting last night’s It’ll Be All White On The Night BOD Party.  Some 60 BOD sailors and friends enjoyed a fabulous evening (and for some a fabulous early morning!) in Mark and Marianne’s wonderful garden with a great time being had by all as you can see from our photos below.

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At this rate we might have to get the harbour authorities to dredge the start area to make sure we have enough room to fit the fleet on the Committee Boat line! 😉 Unbelievably we are now up to 24 boats for Pyefleet Week as Dave Draper has just confirmed that he will be racing in C40 March Hare, which will be on loan from Nick Readings (one again huge thanks to BOD Fleet Fairy Godfather Nick for being so generous in lending his boats out to keen teams).

Dave confirms he plans to put March Hare together over the next few days and will then be out for some warm up racing.  He will be sailing with Andy Chase, who used to own and race Squibs from Burnham, and they are currently looking for a good third crew so if anyone wants to volunteer just give Fi a shout on fiona.brown@fionabrown.com and she will put you in touch.

Now we just need one more to make it 25 for the entire week!  Come on someone… get that boat out of the shed and come and play in the most exciting fleet in Pyefleet Week bar none!

Click here for the current Provisional Pyefleet Week entry list

Click here for the official Pyefleet Week website.