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AUGUST 1995 BUILDING = ; s REVIEWS = LEOPARD Deseeeerine’s elegant motor KIL Plan Feature WW1 ‘Fast Trawler’ SPECTACULAR SANDOWN New in the marine world yacht reviewed Picturesque view of Scarborough Mere, venue for Primrose Valley Modellers Week One Metre racing, with Peter Holmes (33) leading the way to the leeward mark. looks at the hard and soft side of radio yacht racing he early part of the year is full of racing, some of it is reported here plus some ideas for those spreading personal computers – stick sails on them! Primrose Valley Each year the month of May brings an opportunity for modellers to gather together ‘under one roof’ in Yorkshire on the Primrose Valley Holiday Village site adjacent to Filey on the East coast. Model yachtsmen are not left out although only a select band take the trouble to drag along their One Metres and have a sail. The ‘tiddlers’ – 575’s and 590’s – are provided with short sessions on the camp based lake while the larger yachts have, for some years now, had the opportunity to sample the delights of the Scarborough Mere. My thoughts for this working holiday as organiser of the bunch tooka bit of a dive whenI received a letter telling me that the Scarborough Club was being wound up and they no longer held a lease on the little bit of the Mere that we had used. Thankfully the Scarborough Council came to the rescue with permission for us to use the Mere for the week of the V.E. Day Bank Holiday. We had to improvise a bit to set up a course with some beach ball marker buoys which didn’t anchor into the bottom of the lake quite as well as they might because during 1994 the lake was dredged to remove all that awful clinging black sludge. After each day of the competition when we removed the weights and their anchor lines they were as clean as when they were put in. What a pity there seems to be no way that a club can be found to make regular use of this delightful piece of water. True – it is surrounded by trees, it is in a valley, and it is the home of some wildlife (see later in this report) but the valley causes most of the air movement to be funnelled one way or the other to flow roughly along the length of the lake. It has a hard edge all the way around which is almost entirely accessible, only broken in one or two places by small clumps of growth which probably serve as nesting sites for coots and/or moorhens. Along its main edge there is a public path, beyond which is a grassy area where non-sailing yachts can be rested, and between the path and the edge of the lake there is another grassed area which, though prone to being a little soft at times, is remarkably resilient and resistant to a team of skippers doing their up and down parading ‘bit’. Across one end there is a picturesque bridge with a boat and rubbish resistant board beneath; the gap at the other end is bridged by a board walk at the same level as the remainder of the edge. The whole of the sailing area is arrived at various times during the week to sail as part of the Modeller’s Holiday Week. Twelve, all sailing One Metres (although R36R’s are still officially included), formed the racing nucleus and were grouped together into four teams of three. These were randomly selected at the start of the competition and served to bring together skippers of varying skills and abilities to help one another and improve the overall performance levels. Despite the ‘laid back’ atmosphere of the regatta, competition between these teams was seen to be very keen at times. well in the public eye and during our operation at the lake we have had many local and holiday making people come and watch. Many clubs would give an awtul lot to have sucha site – it certainly makes an eminently usable One Metre lake; and match racing Six Metres could be serious fun on the lake as well. With a little effortand imagination one could sail vane yachts there as well. Sixteen skippers, including myself, One man and his boats. The elusive Jake Kelso always manages to surprise us: this year it was a big America’s Cup Class yacht to John Lewis’ Phase Two design its progress through the water is rapid though water disturbance is minimal and the cheeky little schooner with twochannel control and a scale hull shape. It doesn’t seem to need an extended keel or enlarged rudder. 64 MODEL BOATS AUGUST 95 this family; before our eyes one of the geese acted as a decoy to draw the swan away from the youngsters. The with number twenty three. The initial wind strength was clearly adequate to within feet of our parked yachts on the shore at times and only subsided the number three rig. Very soon however the wind faded and there were ensuing chase brought both birds shortly before we resumed sailing. The timing of this activity could not have been better: had we been sailing there would have been a serious possibility of damage to some of the yachts for those involved seemed oblivious to all around them. When we considered going back on the water there was a combined decision that maybe number two rigs might be prudent so there was a delay before the afternoon’s sailing got under way. Once it did the races were rattled off at an alarming rate to wind up with a combined total of twenty two races Harry Lee’s new Ragtime called Wizbang demonstrates that One Metres do make waves when pressed hard enough. side of the Mere, complete with waterproofs at the ready, for a second day of competition. Fortunately they were not needed for their original purpose but many kept them on to shield from the increasing wind which, to be blunt, was cold! During the morning number one suits were again being carried but racing was conducted at a much brisker pace than the previous day. By lunch time the wind was arriving in larger gusts so that part of the self supplied entertainment had a little difficulty in rigging and trimming. Jake Kelso had brought along his latest yachting creation and possibly the largest sail powered craft seen at Primrose Valley – an America’s Cup class yacht. Built to the ‘Phase Two’ design from John Lewis this is a typical He was in the lead at the time, Peter Holmes navigates his way down Scarborough Mere while the rest of the fleet fights its way away from the wing mark. Monday, the opening day of the competition, saw Number One suits and wind strengths varying from near the top of the range for this suit to virtually nothing. In the beginning the sun shone, then caught us out by giving way to some short, sharp and wetting showers. As is usual for a meeting of this type there was a fair amount of boat sorting out being done during the early stages of the day, followed by some expiry of batteries ‘Jake’ craft with just about everything but the basic radio gear being self built; even the twin servo based winches to handle the largest sails Jake’s built. This relatively enormous yacht was charging about the Mere in the hands of various skippers although its size made the speed seem less obvious. For a while during the break attention was switched away from the yachts to a wildlife drama being acted out at very close quarters. During the morning four geese had been seen around the edge of the lake shepherding a group of goslings. As we broke for lunch the local, and lone, swan decided to take a severe dislike to for the first two days: the same number of races scored during the three days sailing in 1994, With all skippers, bar one, having sat out three races they qualified for two discards while George Wilby had the pleasure of throwing away three which helped to overcome some of the problems he was having with a battery pack. Thursday would see all the others qualify for the additional discard. After the second day Peter Holmes had consolidated his lead over John Downham to a whole 3.3 points! Ian Damant had extended the gap between himself and Harry Lee to a round twenty points. The ‘A’ team of David Dean, Peter Holmes and Jake Kelso held a comfortable lead of just under twenty three points over the Oy team of Tom Akenclose, Ian Damant and Harry Lee. After a one day break in sailing activities the side of Scarborough Mere saw the competitive types re-assemble but with one significant absentee. Proving that ‘Buggy Racing can damage your health’ Peter Holmes was seeking out the assistance of a local doctor for treatment of chest pain symptoms noticed after his ‘rest day’ at the on-site outdoor car racing session. Tuesday at the Mere had been rather ‘bracing’ (some would say cold – but they hadn’t experienced Thursday), Wednesday morning was also pretty cool and took its toll on our current leader. Happily Peter returned to watch the competition for a while but under orders to ‘be good’ and keep warm; so he didn’t stay long. Once the course was re-laid and the yachts re-assembled racing resumed warrant number two, there was even talk among those faint of heart about thoughts of getting out the number one suits; but it was not to be and the air flow eventually settled at a level just about sufficient to justify the decision not to change up. The brisk wind which plainly came from the north- it felt as if it had come straight from the Arctic kept racing moving along at a good pace. So much so that during this third day of sailing we packed in seventeen races, five more than on Tuesday and seven more than on the first day. It was not just the wind that was responsible for this: participant sailing performance had also improved so that the fleet was a lot closer together at the end of a race, therefore the next race could be started that much sooner. I have a feeling that a desire not to stand around waiting in the cool air had a bearing on it as the gloves, woolly hats and other heat retaining garments emerged. The sun was doing little to alleviate the chilling factor of that wind, although by the end of the afternoon it felt as if the overall temperature was rising – perhaps we becoming acclimatised. The temporary demise of Peter Holmes had theoretically left John Downham with an unassailable lead: this didn’t prevent Ian Damant mounting a challenge for the lead with a string of first places, seven in all, but this was insufficient to catch John. The result of this sparkling performance and of Harry Lee’s attempts to prevent Ian opening their divide was to pull their ‘C’ Team of Three into a winning lead of almost a hundred points. The awards were presented at the Thursday evening ‘Boat Forum’ but the biggest award I could see coming out of this relatively intensive three day period of sailing is the improvement of sailing performance of a number of the participants. This came about from the communal efforts to help fellow skippers set sails, tune yachts, and actually point the yacht in the right direction. The latter particularly from ‘off-duty’ skippers during their periodic formal non-sailing race. Will we back next year? It looks as if One Metres will be sailed during the Primrose Valley 1996 Modeller’s Holiday Week – the actual venue is not yet known: most of the current regulars during the later stages. Ten races were completed, with all the fleet being on the water for the first four races, the remainder seeing two skippers ‘rested’ each time from then on. The early races promised a competitive meeting with four different skippers taking the line honours. Thereafter the familiar pattern began to emerge with John Downham and Peter Holmes easing into a distinct lead with Harry Lee and Ian Damant battling out the next two places. At the end of the day by which time most skippers had sat out two races and all had qualified for one discard, it was Peter Holmes in the lead with 8.1 points. In second place was John Downham with 10.4 points: Jan Damant held third with 26.7 and Harry Lee had collected 30.7 points to sit in fourth place. After the late afternoon rain of Monday and a forecast of more to come on Tuesday we all gathered back at the MODEL BOATS AUGUST 95 have been sunny, but it was chilly. The One Metre crowd gather alongside Scarborough Mere: it may 65 Top Five One Metres at Primrose Valley Yacht Jazz Magpie Ragtime Own Design Comick Skipper John Downham Tan Damant Harry Lee Jake Kelso David Dean Place Ist 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Total Score 319 54.2 106.1 110.9 112.9 Top Five Small Yachts at Primrose Valley 590’s 575’s Skipper Total Score Skipper Place Graham Breeze 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th . Muriel Holmes Brian Holmes Don Timmis Mandy Holmes 47 29.8 47.7 48 50.7 Graham Breeze Gwyneth Adcock Tan Adcock – Norman Harris Merlyn Coates Total Score 27 27.8 44.8 49.4 58.4 A slightly smaller group of 6 Metres than has become the norm gathered in the blustery South wind to travel the opposite way around the lake to usual. With less foliage to fight its way through the wind was more or less up and down the pond with our beat being . from left to right. That the trees and buildings were having an influence was evidenced by some particularly vicious flurries and shifts: pick the wrong one today and you were likely to be ‘stuffed’. I found this out the hard way whenI broke one of the cardinal rules of match racing and split tacks with Mike Wareham as I was leading him into the windward mark. Convinced that the wind shift was going to carry me into the mark while it held up Mike, I had barely travelled a couple of boat lengths whenI realised that I had been severely ‘conned’ by the little flurry and Mike was going to get there ahead. With next to nothing in terms of speed difference between our Renaissances I was left to trail him along the far bank and along the short reach and beat to the finish. Fortunately for me I didn’t get many other shifts wrong during the remainder of the day and never strayed far from the direct windward line ahead Nigel Gilson (standing) assists Henry Farley – MYA General Secretary – sort out the rig and tune of his Force 6 prior to racing at Lee Valley. would like to be back at the Mere; because it is, among other things, a pleasant picturesque place to go close to the town centre and only a short ride from the base site. It also is the scene of some interesting and challenging wind patterns giving plenty of scope for experience at seeking out that best breeze and, should the wind fail in the presence of sun, there is always the chance of an impromptu bit of sun bathing. These features still seem to outweigh the drawbacks of no formal toilet or refreshment facilities and, at the moment, no readily accessible rescue boat or secure marker buoys. A visit to the Scarborough Mere has become as mucha tradition at Primrose Valley as the Wednesday evening auction, let us hope we can find a way of letting it continue. Meanwhile, back on the Holiday Village, other regulars were setting about the 575 and 590 competitions organised by Terry Costigan with almost the inevitable result, both classes were won by that Peter Pan of the model yachting world – Graham Breeze. In the 575 group the Holmes family had a good try at overwhelming the opposition by taking three of the top five places while in the slightly 66 larger 590 class Gwyneth Adcock nearly beat Graham and finished significantly far ahead of son Ian. For whatever reason the entry was reduced this year; perhaps it was the rearrangement of the Bank Holiday to be aligned with the V.E. day celebrations together with some rumours that the Holiday Week was not going to take place, apparently emanating from the Holiday company themselves. We have been assured that there will be an ‘event’ in 1996 and that it will take place during the first full week of May. Match Racing The end of May saw the, by now, traditional gathering of Match Racers on Clapham Common while a number of the other prominent members normally found around the vicinity were exercising their twiddling fingers at the Radio Marblehead Nationals. They had gone to Scotland this year, so there was no chance of me popping off to see them for a report on the Monday. Clapham ‘95 turned out to be a ‘Renaissance’ day, with the top five places all being occupied by yachts of that design: the first non-Renaissance was Nigel Gilson in sixth place with his own Dann-4 design. of my opposing skipper. My closest race of the day was with fellow Two Islands skipper John Daines: John won the start after I made a complete hash of timing my approach to the line and ran out of room before the gun went – not a way to start a match against a competitive skipper with a quick yacht. This was a race where we were both faced with a turn John for rapping the wing mark with his jib boom – me for not giving John quite enough room on the inside as I rounded the wing mark for the leg into the finish. By the time I had whipped Red Dwarf through 360 degrees just in front of the finish line John was hard on the wind and pounding in from the last mark – I was lucky to get away with the turn before he arrived and managed to get my bow over first. Probably the closest finish of the day was between Brian Decker and Tony Riley when Brian got home ahead by the thickness of a bow bumper. This victory was to become even more significant at the end of the day when it emerged that Brian and Tony were tied on 12 points and the first of the tie breaks came into operation. Who beat who between the pair tied: it was that bumper thickness that did it! Brian was to suffer almost terminal misfortune later in the day when his yacht tried to take off across the lake with his transmitter aerial hooked in its small YACHTS goes birdwatching! This brave goose was leading the Mere’s belligerent swan away from the new brood ofgoslings, just after this shot, they were up on the bank among us! backstay. The extra load placed on the rig proved to be too much for the mast which broke at the hounds. During the remaining time and lunch break Brian carried out some running repairs to join the two broken bits of the mast: he was sailing again during the afternoon, although his sail trim was less than desirable. All appeared to be going well until he was chasing me home during board nine: as he approached the wing mark for the second time something snapped and the whole ring fell overboard. The mast had finally fractured for a second time; just above the gooseneck. It is not unusual for the match racing ‘circus’ to arrive at a lake and be faced with setting up and running their own thing. Clapham has a club house, perhaps it should be renamed ‘bunker’, and it is not unusual in such circumstances for someone from the home club to come along and open up. This time Derek Frost drew the short straw, he then stayed on to do a stirling job of setting up the event and keeping us going through the schedule; come rain, come shine. The pace of the event ensured that we only just had time to think about what we were doing without too much time to settle into long conversations that while away the time. As a result we had time to pack up in a leisurely fashion, hear the results and depart for home before the promised rain arrived in earnest. MODEL BOATS AUGUST 95 Ate = ’ “4 = s , \, ‘ t > Fy ss, ~ Nigel Gilson gets J-Sann 6 ready for racing at the Lee Valley Match Race meeting. hull. Note the carefully padded stand to protect that beautifully finished Jack Day Nigel is experimenting with wings on his new 6 Metre. At Lee Valley they were straight and suspended below the tail end of the lead bulb. The model moved nicely in the light airs at Lee Valley. Marine Modelling Match Race Series – Two Islands Top Design Club Skipper Place Renaissance Cotswold Mike Wareham 1st Renaissan Two Islands Mike Kema0 2nd John ; cece igs Renaissan Two Islands Daines 3rd 4th oth Paddy Chamber Chamberss Charles Two Islands Two Islands Renaissancece Renaissan Five Name Black Adder Red Dwarf Vie: Total Score 20 18 17 16 Nimrod e Clementin 15 willn thing which g intoyear.a close-run developin once again and is ‘worst’ towetakestartshape is starting the series eventsto track After four discussio some is There the in later scores dropping once predict and becomeondifficult system so I cannot MYAa Ranking League- giveor the the MYA serieslook- likeroughly thetheoverall the bestbutwaythetotopscore about scores going overall two: or place take or this like moment at five publish Top Five in the Marine Modelling Match Race Series Name Club Skipper Place Red Dwarf Two Islands Mike Kemp 1st 2nd 4th5th 3rd John Daines Mike Robinson Corbett Anthony Mike Wareham Two Islands Cotswolds Cotswolds Guildford Vie Black Adder Rival Mr Plod t Distric One Metre League E . ips ionsh Champ ee . of the early district passing With; thehips give a room enough Notbyreally some National even and champions of thetovarious accountchampions blowDistrict is blow Radio League the hips Champions hips; One Metre g have Woodsprin up.into hotting now entry the overall the say to except for a frame,leaders theg early firmly climbed to have beena little higher than short while overtakin back a bit now seems last year. The Midland District had to Guildford but dropping the RM National and District One Metre Championships are out of the way. Helping to achieve this position were a number of newcomers to the league system and one or two who didn’t feature during the previous twelve months so scoring double for their first outing of the season. MODEL BOATS AUGUST 95 postpone their event for a fortnight and shift the event to another lake because of a belligerent swan – we have had one District Scottish Midland Eastern Met. & South South West Neen Champion Richard Rowan Mike Weeks Philip Newman Brian Wiles Anthony Corbett Top Ten Radio Clubs Club Guildford 1 eugene d = Chelmsfor 2nd a Waudapei 3rd 0 ath 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th pring e Bournvill Solent Market Bosworth Sedgemoorhire Leicesters Swanley Valley Gipping Soa 791.4 690.6 512.1 : oud 265.5 241.3 236.7 195.1 194.1 192.2 Number of events so far : 4 3 42 3 ughworthMere in ofh thoset atandScarboro well : l e w he past andAs are tavoiding! thatwo meeting result a from skippers a few extra gained the Northern District which all to and adds legal perfectly seems and s Champion The interest. the runners up are as follows, from the Northern most downwards: Unfortunately the Northern District results had not arrived by the time this was put together. Club Greenock Leicestershire Chelmsford Guildford Sedgemoor Runner up John Taylor Gordon Sears Rupert Jeffries Rob Vice a awe ualsScore Individ Top Ten Radio Skipper 1st 2nd 3rd ot6th 7th 4thh 8th 9th 10th Anthony Corbett Mark Dennis Bantock Graham Nick Ski KeithWeall Skipper eith Stollery Roger Chris Harris Robert Brown Sears Gordon David Taylor 131.5 112.8 112.6 100.5 100 97.1 108.2 93.2 8786.6 Club Fleetwood Market Bosworth Chelmsford Clapham 67 aE 6 Metre owners will have heard of the new Registrar. Here he is – Paul Heys original builder and owner of Promises. He tells us there is another, Promises 2, on the way. Ian Taylor was our Race Officer at the third round of the Match Racing series; he was in ebullient mood as he announced the results. knowledge of the spreadsheet application being used and in this issue makes use of the latest versions of the two main products i.e. Lotus 123 Rel. 4 & 5 for Windows and Microsoft Excel 4 & 5, also for Windows. Later issues may tackle the same basic solutions for earlier software versions which don’t have the vital functions for easily identifying discardable scores and ranking scores in order. The basic structure of the sheet will remain the same however. South West District RM Ranking Race. One man and his boat. Nick Weall rushes to join in a heat; or maybe he has grown tired of his Skalpel. Either way it is an unusual attitude to adopt with a Marblehead. Scoring with a Spreadsheet During a recent conversation after a regatta which I had ‘scored’ using a spreadsheet the thought struck me that now that the personal computer is spreading rapidly and many regatta secretaries have one at their disposal it might be worth sharing a few ideas on how to use one to score a radio meeting. Many regattas have been run where a personal computer has been used to assist the organisation and scoring. At major events like European and World Championships the controlling software is usually especially written, sometimes using a proprietary database but always presenting a custom ‘front-end’ which could be managed by someone lacking the skills to cfeate the original application. Although able to provide many or nearly all the necessary functions for running such an event these are something of an overkill for the average one day regatta. For the one day event an ordinary spreadsheet such as Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Excel can provide the necessary features to help the race secretary/officer/scorer to compile the vital results. After all, at the end of such an event, the key functions are to total the scores, identify and subtract discards, and present a finishing order. What follows assumes a basic 68 The basics of a suitable spreadsheet has a strong similarity to a sheet of paper ruled into columns and rows. Indeed the first few columns would be set out with exactly the same information; for instance Competitor Number, Name, Sail Number, Club etc. The top rows would normally carry headings identifying these pieces of information. They would be followed by one column for each of the races to be run. So far we have not come across any formulae or special functions. The first of these appears in the first column to the right of those dedicated to the score for each race. Its purpose is to generate a sub-total of each competitor’s scores and would make * use of the SUM function In 1-2-3 it would typically be @SUM(E5..P5) where the competitor’s information resides in row 5 and there are twelve races being considered with their results being entered in columns E through to P. The same function in Excel would be =SUM(E5:P5). The next function to the considered takes care of selecting and discarding the highest scores according to the scoring system being used. In EORS twelve races would warrant two discards, the first being selected after four races have been completed. Thus the next formula identifies and displays the highest score of the competitor’s set as soon as four or more races have been completed. To make this selection several standard spreadsheet functions are used. The first, an IF function, forces the sheet to place a zero in the cell until more than four race scores have been entered. The second, a COUNT function, checks to see how many scores have been entered. The last, the MAX function, picks out the highest score entered. The resulting formula looks like this in 1-2-3: @IF(@COUNT(ES..P5)>4,@MAX(ES –P5),0) In EXCEL: =IF(=4,=MAX(E 5:P5),0) Promised a couple of issues ago; new man on the scene Gordon McGuire’s Stiletto design is another slim, rounded hull. This one, Beggars Banquet, is in the hands of Brian Wiles. The next column uses another set of functions to carry out a similar check to detect the second largest score as soon as 10 or more race scores have been entered. In all releases of 1-2-3 prior to the Release 4 this was a minor problem (see a later issue of this column) but a recent addition to the range of functions has made it easy. It makes use of the LARGE function which is similar to the MAX function but can be made to look for the second largest, the third largest, and so on by adding a suitable argument within its set of brackets thus: @IF(@COUNT(E5..P5)>9,@LARG and Excel to display the current position of each skipper. This ranks the particular final score within the range of all the final scores. This example assumes an entry of fifteen skippers with the first being recorded in row 5 of the spreadsheet and the last being in row 19. So the formula created in the first row and copied to all the others it is necessary to maintain the range of row addresses by making that part of the range Absolute – hence the inclusion of the § dollar signs; note that the column part of the address is left in its Relative form so that the spreadsheet can adjust to suit any E(E5..P5,2),0) additional races or discards to be included. In 1-2-3 it would look like out like this: this: In EXCEL 4 & 5 the function works =IF(=COUNT(E5:P5)>9,=LARGE( E5:P5,2),0) @RANK(U5,US5..US$19,1) In Excel – Of course the same formula, modified to find the first largest, could be used in place of the Max version. It can then be repeated in the next columns across the sheet to find the third and fourth largest for longer events of up to 36 events. The only problem that is not instantly solvable is that under EORS and other similar systems one is only allowed to throw away one Disqualification score out of every two discards. As the spreadsheet cannot instantly differentiate between a disqualification high score and a ‘normal’ high score some manual intervention is necessary should someone go mad with disqualifications. Once the discards have been =RANK(U5,U$5:US 19,1) With the proviso that multiple disqualifications may have to be handled separately these formulae can be built into a spreadsheet to provide a rapid and reasonably foolproof tool to relieve some of the stress at the end of the racing day. Even more useful, interim reports can be issued during the racing day to give skippers an idea to subtract the sum of the discards from the sub-total to arrive at an actual final score. A further formula is possible in the latest versions of 1-2-3 Race I am indebted to the Race Officer, Brian Wiles, for this short expose of Radio Marblehead Ranking in the identified a further formula is needed of how they are doing – what a way to increase the pressure and racing interest! Sometime in the future we might be able to look further into the aspect of using modern tools to help with race control. South West RM. Ranking MODEL BOATS AUGUST 95 other people’s boats (with the agreement of all the other skippers) which can’t have been very satisfactory for him; however he finished tenth at Approaching a leeward mark, John Downham (148) has an inside overlap on David Dean (13) as the mark is rounded … an overlap is translated into a lead by John Downham (148), although from this position David Dean (13) could try to round up into a windward position. four points, just ahead of Graham Bantock. Brian Wiles must have felt a little disappointed with only sixteen entries to do battle, on the other hand scorer Chris Jackson probably felt a little pleased that he didn’t have too many to total up at the end of the day! Just to show that the friendly spirit does exist in the ‘RM.’ world, despite the dreadful image many seem to have of this gentlemanly bunch, there is a little story of a well known London based skipper. It goes like this – in Brian’s own words: “Just before racing started a helmeted figure had arrived at race control; I recognised the voice, just, and helmet removal (sounds like an operation – doesn’t it) revealed Rob South West. It seems that a large yellow object in the water greeted early arrivers at the Apex Lake, home of the be some close races, with barely a boat Sedgemoor Club and venue for the 1995 South West District MYA Ranking Race. Normally this plastic ‘thing’ could be seen at the side of local roadworks and containing a number of workmen during their ‘odd’ moments between bouts of terrorising passing motorists with holes, cones, and other paraphernalia of the road ‘mending’ Chris Dicks who came out as the winner with some very consistent sailing in either first, second, or one profession. Courtesy of some local vandals it was now cluttering up the course. It was soon removed and length separating first and second on a number of occasions. Ultimately it was third place all day. His only poorer scores of seven and eleven were discarded to leave him with a grand total of 9.8 points for the day. Second and third were some way behind but only separated by 0.4 of a point with Roger Stollery taking second on twenty the end of the day collecting a couple of second places on the way. Nice one Rob – on yer bike!” After eleven races the meeting was called to halt by which time sixteen of the seventeen starters remained in operation. The only exception was John Cleave whose new Roar Edge developed some winching problems; whether these had anything to do with the alarming tilt to the mast is not clear. John was trying out a cunning new scheme to adjust the rake of the rig by remote control – perhaps there have been a few teething problems! Brian is full of praise for the way in which this fearsome bunch conducted themselves. He reports that the standard of behaviour on the water and the general attitude was as near perfect as one could wish for. Any critics of the MYA events, and Marbleheads in particular should have been there! (This is something I have been generally aware of for a long time now it is a myth that the ‘higher echelons’ of our sport are nothing but trouble to sail with: they are too interested in getting on with the sailing to actually cause aggro. However don’t mess with them unless you want to ‘do it right’, because they don’t like having their rhythm upset by deliberate ‘wrong doers’). The whole of the Sedgemoor Club also deserve a word of praise and thanks for this meeting, they gave up their Sunday to go along and observe the happenings. This meant that none of the skippers had to break away and observe the potential misdemeanours of the racing: that may have had Vice! After a few comments such as – I something to do with their own good see you have a folding Marblehead in your pocket – it transpired that Rob’s boat was being brought by Martin Roberts. The problem being that Martin never arrived! Rob spent the day sailing a variety of behaviour also! Next Time We will try to have an update on the ranking and league lists, and a report on two more days of match racing. South West District RM Ranking – Top Five Place 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Skipper Chris Dicks Roger Stollery Graham Bantock Paul Jones Paul Tickner Club Clapham Guildford Chelmsford Doncaster Guildford Total Score 9.8 24 24.4 40.3 A5 deposited on the grassy lakeside to serve a useful purpose for the rest of the day! Racing got under way at 10:30am with two seeding heats won by Chris Dicks and Brian Cheetham respectively: Brian must have been all fired up after his trek from Doncaster in the North East to take advantage of a light Southerly wind giving a good beat to the first mark where the fleet were still managing to arrive in a fairly tight bunch. Thereafter Chris Dicks proceeded to dominate the early morning proceedings until Roger Stollery got himself sorted out to take one more win for a total of three, while Graham Bantock also managed to get home in front in one race. Brian Cheetham had a fairly middling performance after his seeding race flourish and was eclipsed in the early stages by fellow Doncaster member Paul Jones, temporarily ‘on loan’ from the other side of the world! With an entry containing many of the top names in Radio Marblehead racing in the UK South West District RM Ranking Race. Roger Stollery (39) leads a fleet of closely matched Marbleheads: John Cleave (144), Paul it was quite natural that there should Jones (08) and Roy Pearson (99) are in close attendance. MODEL BOATS AUGUST 95 69
