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LY 1994 AOL L f ;a Mi S Zz = ‘: fi i is , ‘ a 7, hy ROYAL REVIEWS! A FREE PULL-OUT GALLERY Part three’. Early Season Regatta News R U O L O C E R O M S E G A P E R O M asp Incorporating the best of co72 PUBLICATIONS Just some of the fleet in the Northern One Metre Ranking Race. Here they are just spreading out from the start at Salford Quay Manchester, on what proved to be a super piece of water. is moving into the frame. MIKE KEMP Top Five Clubs brings his respected yachting column from R/C YACHTING Boat Modeller — League News — Rankings — Rules — Ae at Furzton Lake in Milton Keynes on Sunday April 3rd to get the 1994 season under way. As it was Easter Sunday I suppose it was quite understandable that the entry was slightly smaller than might have been expected. Or was the fear that the wind which has dogged several meetings so far this year might whip this fairly open stretch of water into such a frenzy that racing would be impossible? With such a small entry and the operation of a slick schedule by Race Officer John Daines the actual Match Racing was over very early: so early in fact that I was home for lunch not much later than I might be after a Sunday morning Club meeting. A couple of ‘all-in’ fleet races were conducted while the final scores were computed and the new leaders of the championship were announced, As expected it is going to be close this year with the two Mikes – Kemp and Wareham- on top just one point apart followed by Roger Neeve and Nigel Gilson two points further down. Roger came out on top of Nigel by virtue of winning their particular match. Nigel Gilson, better known around the country for his often startling performances with a One Metre has joined the migration to Sixes with a yellow Force Six which proved to be more than competitive in a number of the races. Our own match was a pretty hectic affair which saw him round the first mark just ahead of my Red Dwarf; whereupon I gave myself a penalty by hitting the little red bucket. It was then a game of catch-up around the quite long beat and run course until Nigel, feeling the pressure a bit I suspect, hit the last leeward mark and gave me my opportunity to slip by into a covering position. That was a relief for me! 32 Score 233.5 232 3rd 4th Woodspring Swanley 214.8 210.5 oth Sedgemoor 183 Top Ten Individuals Skipper Score 1st Tim Townsend 78 2nd Mark Dicks Several of the other matches were conducted in a similar vein and saw some near upsets of the known form. I think my closest race was with Roger Neeve who is about to sell his Renaissance ‘Excaliber’: Roger and I were almost the first up, and our rustiness at this game showed, we were coming into contact at various parts of the course, causing 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th David Taylor Jim Vice Brian Wiles Phil Playle Graham Bantock Peter Wiles Derek Coleman Chris Harris 72 67 ourselves numerous penalties. The whole meeting was conducted in bright sunlight, though the wind was cold enough for the ‘thermals’ to be almost obligatory wear. Rain and even snow were forecast for later in the day so it was with a degree of pleasure that we all packed up and set off for home before the forecast came true. May Ist, another ‘Bank Holiday’ weekend, will see the next round of this championship: I am afraid I shall be unable to report that one in person as I shall be some way North of the Northern District One Metre New Products small part of the Match Racing circus 2nd Club Chelmsford Clapham 1st 63 62 52 49 48 46 45 Ranking On Sunday 10th April thirty one skippers predominantly from ‘North of Watford’ gathered at the side of Salford Quays to thrash out the Northern District Ranking race under the control of Keith Partington. The course was set to proceed to the left hand, inland corner, of the Quay in response to the roughly North East wind which came in over and around some rather tall buildings. As Top Five in The Marine Modelling Match Race Championship Place Skipper Club Design Points 1st Mike Kemp Two Islands Renaissance 9 2nd Mike Wareham Cotswold Renaissance 8 3rd Roger Neeve Cotswold 4th 5th Renaissance Nigel Gilson Paddy Chambers Gipping Valley Two Islands Force Six Tern “i 6 5 Lee Valley lake but I shall be at the next, later in the month at Clapham. 1994 Radio League – Latest There have now been eleven events reported and the old league protagonists are starting to emerge towards the top of the Club championship; whilst the defending Champion Club -Fleetwood – have yet to post a score. There is a new leader in the Individual part of the championship and the reigning champion one might imagine these buildings caused some disturbance of the wind and presented skippers with some interesting wind shifts that might be considered as an understatement by some! The start was set at the other end of the Quay and the leeward mark was slightly further behind the start line; the finish was at the other end, giving us three long treks up the lakeside and three back. | estimate that although we only completed seven races during the day each MODEL BOATS JULY 1994 skipper walked somewhere betwe en five and half way up the first beat. The wind conditions seven miles during the day’s racing: and arrived at the first mark he was in about seventh place: held that positi on until partway into two heats and with EORS that means a heat size, after seeding, of about nineteen, was only the persistenc e of the leaders that prevented him from actual ly winning that B that there were so few protes ts, for racing was typically One Metre – close. Perhaps the fact pathway, meant that nearl y everyone could see to guide their yacht through the inevitable melee that ensued. That the mark was potential pressure of lots of well driven yachts an entry fee, there was talk of ‘getting it driving, or diving, in: inste ad they just gently sailed in and around the mark. better’ for the forthcoming RA National Championship. That should be quite a There were some remarkable sacrifices made by the host club memb ers who relieved skippers of the need to obser ve by taking on meeting at this venue for there is usually some wind of sorts at this lake, launching is relatively easy, courses are easy to see and there is always the ‘pub’ at the end of the quay for instant refreshment, Well done to Keith this role themselves all day long: it was much appreciated and may also have contributed to the low protest rate. Simon Redford drove the Partington and all his Ashto n Quays helpers for giving us competitors an excellent and computer throughout the day to produce a rapid response scoring servi ce although this pretty hassle-free day: I look forward to going was confounded by the close racing at the end back sometime. of the meeting. It took no less than four ‘countbacks’ to separate Martin Rober ts and Andy Kissick who finished the racin g with twenty Top Ten in the One Metr e Northern Ranking two point seven points each. Andy eventually emerged on top while Derek Priestley brought another ‘Parasite’ into third place a mere 0.3 Club Andy Kissick Martin Roberts Fleetwood 3rd Derek Priestley Nigel Sharp 5th 6th success severely curtai led by a transmitter Chris Harris Mike Kemp 7th Graham Elliott David Taylor 8th resulting drop to B heat and one race out was 9th too much to take care of with a discard and his ay Skipper 1st 4th battery failure halfway throu gh the day. The present, the chance to show off. Having had to Place 2nd points adrift. Behind them were a small group who had been at or about the top all day. Hot favourite for the day, Rob Vice – all the way from Clapham via a local hotel, had his make some minor repair he was caught out by a fairly prompt start and only managed to cross the line when the tail end of the fleet were over on Scarborough Mere. the prizegiving, arranged at the last moment after an earlier vote of the skipp ers to invoke shadow area also helped by taking off the One particular incident gave Chris Harris, also sailing a new Bubbles 2 a 21st birthd day of One Metre sa iling Statement that there have not been many new seen to the East beyond Manchester. During conveniently sited just inside the windward during the day; there were variou s bits of string that broke and other battery problems. ‘campers’ are just about to embark on the third heat. Of course Chris tells it slightly differently! The weather held until the end of the day; although quite hot in the sun, when the frequent clouds covered up the orb it became chilly again and one was remin ded of the backdrop of snow covered hills that could be that the windward mark was clearly in sight of the competitors who were viewi ng it from a raised position, brought about by the quayside was not the only skipp er to have had problems colour paper, recycled of course , and new pictures not a lot appears to have changed; indeed Graham Bantock opens with a advantage of some slightly slopp y rounding of the leeward mark to climb into third place. It rounding course it is really quite surprising Primrose Valley 1994 — This happy band of regulars from Sails etc. Apart from a new down the long second reach and took With this size of fleet and a starboard by now usual good performanc es with the Bubbles 2; Rob finished in ninth place. Rob difficult to immediately spot the differences. As a guide to where the ‘indus try’ is going | have been having a close look at one of the were so kind to Chris that by the time he enjoyed almost all of it! They were long races and busy ones as well for the fleet was split 10th Rob Vice = Squire Kay Birkenhead Fleetwood Design Designer Parasite John Taylor Chris Dicks John Taylor Squiggle Parasite Slapstick Leeds & Bradford Bournville Two Islands Below; Scarborough Mere provides both sunshine Chris Dicks Bubbles 2 Alex Austin Gopher Gold __ Bill J ury Birkenhead Squiggle Woodspring Imictation Clapham Bubbles 2 Ashton Quays and shelterfor sailors. Chris Dicks David Taylor Below left; Tom Akenclose with his tastful One Alex Austin Sea Petrel Metre Squire Kay ubeire yacht from the R yacht from the Morgan Range. The Current Rankings With apologies to those ‘out there’ who sail Radio A class and Radio 10 Rater yachts we list here the top ten skippers in each of the One Metre and Radio Marbl ehead MYA Ranking Lists. For the unini tiated these are used, at the appropriate time, to make up teams to represent the MYA at International competitions. At reasonably regular intervals, around the districts, there are Ranking Races to award points towards a rolling score; what is presented here is up to date following events on the dates quoted. Top Ten One Metres at April 10th Skipper Score ist 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th val Graham Bantock Rob Vice Keith Skipper 472 464 452 Nigel Gilson Nathan Gilson Brian Wiles 452 413 400 Martin Roberts 376 Chris Dicks pg : icks ; meee SEMI 383 ot 3 Top Ten Radio Marb leheads at April 24th items added to their range over the preceding year. Ist 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Phil Playle Peter Stollery Roger Stollery Nick Weall Martin Roberts Keith Skipper Chris Dicks Mark Dennis David Potter Graham Elliott Score 485 485 455 394 380 377 375 375 367 366 New Products The suppliers’ new catalogues have been out for a little while now: in some cases it is MODEL BOATS : has just been a : concentratio n on Over the last twelve months I have photographed and publi shed illustrations of some Skipper There making what was already there better. of the significant new items such as the cunning little combined back-stay retaining, mainsail head pivoting, top mast band mimicking ‘thing’ which slots neatly into the top of a piece of groovy mast on one metres: and others as well | guess . Another small but significant gadget is an adjus table sail clew attachment which slides into the boom and contracts to expand a sleeve of silicone tubing which grips on the inside of the boom tube. This form of retention is very effective; I know – [have been using it for years to hold in my jib boom counter weight, altho ugh my version is not adjustable, it relies on the depth and length of the groove being just right to provide sufficient retain ing force. The Sails ete. catalogue has had some JULY 1994 33 Roy subtle changes: for instance the ‘Stomp’ design sailed successfully last year by Keith Skipper and now in the hands of Dave Cousins, the Appleton family and others, has replaced ‘Bikini’ as the second string lines plan offered for One Metre plankers. While on the topic of One Metres, you can now get your ballast supplied virtually finished to approx. 2.35 Kg. coated in Carbon/Epoxy ready to accept the fin in an appropriate slot. That will set you back £68.00 – before you complain; just think how long it would take you to do that finishing job, multiply that by the rate you would expect (and accept) to pay your garage to repair your car, and see what the answer is! Other changes in fittings available expand the range a little and include more winch drums, including one to fit Graupner winches. The sail materials include sliders to suit the Walicki type mast and there is an increased Nothing to do with yachis but, Graham Wilks (far right) piloted his Sabre fast electric projectile during Primrose Valley week. array of foils for your choice. Unfortunately these days one expects to see prices of almost everything in the ‘leisure market’ rise year by year, often outstripping inflation. It came as a pleasant surprise to find that although many items have increased by around 2 to 4%; a lot have remained the same, notably the carbon tubes which are stiffer for this year, and some – for instance the 36R and Marblehead swing rig sails have actually decreased in price. Not by a lot but anything helps! Progress on the ‘simplified Rules’ Have you been briefed to use the experimental rules; I haven’t? So why not? Some of the early 1994 meetings tried the experimental ‘simplified rules’; should we try them – do they have a future? At its regular General Meeting last year the International Yacht Racing Union, the IYRU, decided to try a set of ‘Experimental Right-Of Way Rules’. These were to be issued around the world to invite comment in an effort to see a way into the future. They are seen as part of an attempt to make sailboat racing more ‘Media Friendly’: in particular ‘Popular Media Friendly’. You know the type of thing; television sports programmes where explaining concepts such as the ‘the first one to reach 21 points with a clear two point lead wins’ seems taxing; so picking an easy way through the normal IYRR Book would be akin to rowing one’s way to the moon. It is felt in some circles that sailboat racing has to compete for media coverage at events like the Olympics where dashing for an instant result seems to be the thing that grabs the “viewer’s” attention: perhaps that should be – that grabs the producer’s impression of what grabs the viewer’s attention. Whatever: the aim is to try and make the rules simpler for the noninitiated to understand and maybe convert them into the simplistic form required for a short concentration span audience. As an aside it might just be that such a simplification would overcome the reticence of many in the full-sized and remote control worlds alike to have a go at proper racing. To those familiar with the ‘standard’ rules there would appear to be a whole new ‘can of worms’ to be explored: new loopholes and subtleties to be tested, and new strategies to gaining the upper hand to be devised. To be strictly correct the new rules are not really that: they are only a replacement for the bulk of Part IV of the IYRR and have to be studied in association with the remainder of the current rules and definitions. A fundamental concept being promoted is that sailing is a non-contact sport: Thou Shalt Not Hit Another Yacht would appear to be a basic law carved into the tablet of stone. In fact, in different words, that is the very first of the new set of rules although not as positive as that; it gets watered down to …avoid contact with another boat. A second fundamental concept written in is that a boat acquiring Right of Way shall initially allow the other boat room and time to keep clear. None of this Tacking onto Starboard and expecting an instant response from the poor unfortunate caught out by your manoeuvre. The basic right of way rules have not changed significantly: a Port Tack boat still has to give way to a Starboard tack boat. However there is a new extension to this which specifies that when two yachts are within two of the longest boat’s length of each other the Starboard tack boat shall not change course in such a way as to force the Port tack yacht to take more action to keep clear than would have otherwise have been necessary. Graham Wilks’ Sabre fast electric boat powering around at Primrose Valley with its seven cells and out hung steering and drive assembly. 34 This is then qualified further to say that a yacht that has just become a Starboard tack boat may assume her proper course provided adequate room and time is given to the burdened yacht to keep clear. When both boats are on the same tack the basics are still the same: a boat clear ahead has right of way over a yacht clear astern. When two or more such yachts are overlapped; the leeward boat has right of way and the windward boat must keep clear. When a boat is in either of these right of way situations it must not change course without giving any burdened yacht room and time to keep clear. The overlapped situation is one place where there is a really significant change to the existing rule; furthermore it is one that may have a dramatic impact on the sailing style of some Radio skippers. Should a Windward boat have to change course to keep _Clear of a leeward boat: what used to be known as responding to a luff; the Leeward boat shall not sail above her proper course should an imaginary line drawn across the beam and in line with her mainmast be behind the mainmast of the windward yacht. In other words what used to be a cry of Mast to Stem now becomes Mast to Mast; or words to that effect, in order to prevent a luff. Except that the definition of Luffing is no longer in the TYRR by direct command of these new rules. There are a whole new group of rules which come into play when two or more yachts are passing an obstruction, including a mark. The basic ‘overlap’ rules have not changed too much except to reinforce something that was always in the rules, although conveniently forgotten by many at all levels of Remote Control racing. That a yacht which has gained an inside overlap at a mark prior to entering the mythical ‘circle’ may only claim that room if the boats outside her can successfully give the room. It is often the case that a yacht coming up fast from astern succeeds in getting her bow just inside the transom of a yacht which is already inside overlapped on several other yachts. This means that all would have to respond to the call of the respective inside yacht before the new overlap could be honoured: it may not be possible for them all to respond before the new inside yacht reaches the point at which rounding could commence. In this situation the very inside boat cannot just barge in as many do: she would be well advised to slow down (and follow); circle round the inside, or just plainly attempt to sail around the outside of the melee. This rule is more clearly stated in the new set and again is truly consistent with the concept of non-contact sailing. The windward mark is also the scene of another major change to current practice. If two boats are approaching such a mark on opposite tacks and one of them tacks within ‘the circle’ into an inside overlap position prior to rounding the mark she shall not be entitled to room! Thus the door to the ‘suicide alley approach’ so beloved of many skippers is firmly shut. Should such a tack put the tacking craft in a position overlapped but outside another yacht, the new outside boat shall give the new inside boat room. My devious mind wonders what happens if such a tacking craft becomes the ‘meat’ in a three boat sandwich. She has to give the inside boat room, but cannot claim room on the boat outside her??! The opposite tack approach and late tack method of rounding windward marks is being soundly discouraged! The MYA has written its own special version of the new rules and circulated them to clubs for them to try. Taking the lead from what appears to be an intention of those from the IYRU it has renamed them The Experimental Give Way Rules. Although the structure remains the same some subtle but quite significant changes have been made which might be seen to make the rules slightly woollier. an instance is where a statement that “the starboard-tack boat has right-of-way and the port-tack boat shall keep clear” is reduced to “the port-tack boat shall keep clear”. Thus in the MYA version it is only inferred that the starboard tack yacht has right-of-way: history shows that rules based on inference rather than plain statements are much harder to enforce. Although I have my doubts about the ability of either of these experimental rule sets to get us on television – despite my conviction that Radio Yachting could be made to provide very good televisable sport – I feel we should give them a decent trial. It will be difficult to practice because those who habitually sail to the current ‘full’ [YRR will have a lot of trouble breaking ‘the habit’ to sail making full use of the experimental set. Those who race but only MODEL BOATS JULY 1994 ‘get by’ with the barest minim um of IYRR knowledge will probably find little to alter their on-the-water behaviour. I look forward to the experience. Plug for a Future Event If you are looking for a good One Metre event to compete in or watch, make your way to Fleetwood over next August Bank Holiday; for that is the venue for the 1994 MYA One Metre National Championship. We are promised lots of action over the three days includ ing, are you ready for this? Fleet sizes of up to twenty five yachts – bring out the televi sion cameras; that could get busy! For more inform ation contact Andrew G Kissick, 4 Sharples Court, Longridge, Preston, Lancs, PR3 3W]. Next time we will cast an eye over the offerings from some of the other suppliers to our hobby and, as I visit some the race meetings around the cou ntry, I will try to gather some pictures of these examp les in action. Above; Frank Goldsmith came all the way from Gwent with his yacht Atlantis to Primrose Valley Right; Frank Goldsmith’s Atlanti s kit Srom Robbe. There were times when this 401b Jull keeled yacht held its own during racing with the One Metres, Right; Mike Harris the new Midland District Radio 6 Metre Champion making his acceptance speech at Loughborough. Below; Bill Sykes’ ME Silver Medal winning yacht Caprice which helped Mike become Champion. MODEL BOATS JULY 1994 35
