It has been recognised for some time that it can be daunting for less experienced OODs to sort out courses for three fleets when the pressure is on to get the course laid and the race started. Help is at hand. Over the last few months the Sailing Committee have put together twenty four example courses - three for each of the cardinal wind directions, covering good tide/wind, low tide and low wind conditions. Each course is shown in a format that you can transfer directly to the course board, and includes some instructions on how to position the start line and the inflatable buoys.

There is a copy of the course guide in the race box and the boat house so it is easy for the OOD to ask the safety boat teams to lay "Course 1a" for example (the good wind/tide course for North winds). At the bottom of each course section there is a summary of the buoys that need to be loaded into the safety boats. Each of the course sheets are laminated so you can slide them out of he folder and take them afloat if you wish - but remember to put them back.

The Dinghy Cruising fleet took to the water on 14 September in true Goldilocks conditions - a glorious autumn day with enough wind for safe manoeuvres in the river mouth but not too much for comfort. Once again the destination was the Harbour View Café, which to our joy has been reprieved for another year.

Club safety cover was on hand, especially appreciated in the tricky area behind the Warren with its visible and not-so-visible obstructions. Many thanks to the safety crews, who sacrificed an idyllic day's sailing in order to see the fleet safely out and back home again.

Click here to see the day recorded in a great series of photographs by Elaine Beer aboard RS Vision 504 with husband Malcolm.

RS Open Meeting, Starcross YC, 7th September

A bright and sunny morning greeted a healthy travelling fleet to Starcross for another round of the RS200 SW Ugly Tour 2019, sponsored by Westcountry Boat Repairs. Importantly, this was the first part of the Exe Double Header event, consisting of two individual Ugly Tour events on one weekend, with beer and food at Exmouth SC on Saturday night followed by the Exmouth event on the Sunday. The forecast was on the light side, but the fleet's optimism saw us launch, together with the RS400 fleet, into a light wind blowing down the estuary, joining the boats on the water who had already made the sail over from Exmouth with the incoming tide.

Merlin Rockets at Starcross YC – Round 10

The forecast for the Craftinsure Silver Tiller at Starcross Yacht Club on 11/12 May looked promising for a great weekend’s sailing with F3 NW’ly for Saturday, but a lighter veering F2, round to SE’ly for the Sunday. Not the biggest range of tide which allowed for more options, but also got the travellers out of bed early on the Saturday to come and join in the fun.

Saturday’s racing was set opposite the club, with the leeward mark off the Lympstone moorings. Three Port-hand P courses were the order of the day of approx. 45 mins each. Although the sun was out for the majority of the time, the odd cloud made the solid F3 feel a bit chilly between races.

RS100/200/400 Open Meeting at SYC, Saturday 7th September

The SYC RS100/200/400 open on Saturday, 7th September saw 34 boats competing in a variable NNW breeze throughout the 3 races. Many thanks to everyone involved in running the event which went off perfectly. Results have been posted on the website - click RS open. Photos are here.

Exe Regatta 2019 - results 

Some excellent photograhs taken over the Regatta weekend by Garnett Showell are now up on the Regatta website - click here.  Results for the Regatta races can be found at Results.

SYC at the Salcombe Whitsun open meeting

Three SYC 400’s, (Figgy and Barney in 411, Matt and Trisha in 1159, James and Jonathan in 1287) put in a good representation from the club for the three day event over the May bank holiday. The forecast looked good with that rare combo of Wind and Sun and with 15 boats entered the battle commenced! For a full report by Jonathan Carr read SYC at the Salcombe Whitsun open meeting for more details.

The Starcross YC leg of the Two Rivers (Exe and Teign) joint event for Juniors under 15 was held on Saturday 29th June 2019. Medium southerly breezes of between 5 –10 knots greeted the four RS Feva teams in the fast fleet and the ten mixed bag of single-handed boats in the slow fleet. There were three races for each fleet with courses set by PRO James Wells and his team.

The fast fleet was won with three first places by Sophie Raven and Cerys Morgan from Exe SC, giving some indication to the boats behind (which were Josh/Angus and Alana/Will from Exe SC, and Ben/Tom from SYC) what needs to be done to reach regional squad level.

SYC always welcomes new members and you don’t necessarily need to already have - or even buy - your own boat.

For more experienced sailors, the club maintains a small, varied fleet of dinghies that can be hired by members at very reasonable rates.

For those perhaps a little less experienced or if you enjoy the role of tactician, crews for double-handed dinghies are always in demand. Experience is useful of course but is by no means essential, as existing members are always happy to train up new crews.

Please do make contact - we’d love to welcome you to our friendly club.

This new system is intended to make record keeping of berth usage easier for the Club Berth Marshal, Robin Charles.

Previously paper records got lost, destroyed or in some cases were illegible. 

By using this system a simple ID card can be photographed with date and time stamp and the files saved, edited and kept safe.