Royal Thames Autumn Excuse - Yarmouth — 09 October '09

09 October –11 October

It was time to visit the Royal Solent again, SCOW team racing and shooting... A great weekend

 

THERE WAS NO RACING ON THE FRIDAY.....

 

....because some of us cruisers don't carry the sort of insurance that allows one to join in the hurly burly of crowded start lines and three-boat-length stuff. So the CSO said he would devise a "managed peregrination". What on earth could this mean? Having had the benefit of neither a journalistic education nor any SIs (why would we have Sailing Instructions - there was no race?) we were forced back onto the trusty Oxford Dictionary of English. To "peregrinate" is simply defined as "travel or wander from place to place". OK, quite a useful clue as to the planned activity, but the real giveaway was the additional information "archaic or humorous". Clearly the mark of the CSO!

 

After translation, the plan was for entrants to start from a line at the Royal Thames racing buoy at times dictated by the CSO, navigate down the Western Solent in a zig zag manner hopefully passing by lots more yellow buoys to one side or other, and present oneself at Yarmouth for a drink. Simple?

 

Friday lunchtime arrived and the weather was filthy. A cold and brisk south easterly with scudding showers was kicking up a considerable chop at the start line. Stanley Ross had volunteered Highland Beauty as committee boat and the wonderful old boat was rolling enough to put the G&Ts at serious risk. Conditions for the early starters must have been severe, Merlin retiring almost immediately with an implausible story of a mainsail torn when a crewman (Bundy or Houston?) sat on it. Last away was Ken Wise's delightful Starlight 46 Rising Star. Almost immediately the rain stopped, the wind veered to the south and dropped to only 3 knots (in the puffs). Against a 3-knot tide this led to some dramatic heading changes in order to maintain the correct course over the ground, if at all possible. Wonderful testing conditions!

 

Although many conceded victory to the tide and retired to the pleasures of Yarmouth, the VC in Dreamcatcher was able to complete the course correctly and was declared the winner. John McMonigal and his experienced crew in Saba got ever so close before the ripping tide off Yarmouth pier took them out. The only other completed course came from Peter Bainbridge in his racy Skyhunter after a finely judged sail.

 

Should we do this again?

 

Definitely!

 

While on Saturday...

 

Gathering in bright sunshine with air temperature already rising, stoutly booted and dressed traditionally for weather not normally associated with winter field sports, Guns were already beginning to have second thoughts and many were observed removing layers of clothing whilst remaining modestly clothed in traditional breeks, waistcoats and caps.  One, noted for his previous sartorial excesses, remained determined to stun the field if not the quarry in shades more reminiscent of the catwalks of London Fashion Week.

 

For most, this was the first occasion in the season to brandish their firearms and in some cases this lack of practice was all too evident.  However, four excellent drives in the morning produced a significant contribution to the day's anticipated bag, punctuated by the provision of "Nips" half way through consisting of bullshots and hot soup, gala pie and sloe gin.  The pace of walking between drives was beginning to suffer.  Back at the shoot lodge, lunch was served consisting of tarragon chicken salad and Angela's famed fruit cake and cheese, washed down with a glass or two of vino, further slowing the guns in reaching their respective pegs.  Such was the pressure from the excesses of On the Rocks, the Wheatsheaf and the generous hospitality of the day that one of our number felt obliged to assume the horizontal position to reflect upon the height of birds in flight, thus earning himself the award of the Trophy recalling the demise in mysterious circumstances of a late and very much lamented guinea foul.

 

By four-o-clock guns and game alike had had enough and longed for their pre-drinks and prandial snooze (or could it have been post prandial?) in order to prepare themselves for the evening's further excesses.  In all, an excellent day for the guns, less so for the pheasants.

 

Elsewhere, as Kieth Gwynne-Jones reports, there was excellent sport of a different kind to be had on the beautiful and bucolic Yar...

 

A glorious autumn day dawned on Saturday to encourage the sailors remaining after the departure of those who were golfing or slaughtering pheasants.  The remnants of the Cumberland Fleet had been assigned to the SCOWS for 3-boat team racing with the Yarmouth Sailing Club and the Royal Solent.  Trepidation at the prospect of yet another ignominious defeat, particularly likely at the hands of YSC, had been eliminated by our innovative CSO who had devised an ingenious ruse for avoiding total humiliation of any club by establishing 6 teams (3 boats each) of protagonists each team comprised of one member from each of the three clubs.  

 

Even the breeze was kind initially at a civilised 6 - 12 knots but for the occasional gust which threatened your anxious writer, already scarred by his previous SCOW encounter.   On this occasion however, spurred by the beautiful conditions, his pride was restored, even to the extent of his being in the lead in one race until he touched a mark (his now traditional misdemeanour) as the sudden turn of the tide caught him out.

 

The ambitious programme of 12 races, to achieve a full round robin, was sadly curtailed by lightening airs and fear of missing the prospective evening's feast at the Royal Solent, so that only 7 races were completed.   Although there was much pleasurable sailing, there was little of the cut & thrust of team racing - at least until race 4 - after a change of course for wind and tide change.  This race was substantially enlivened by a halcyon and seemingly endless fleet of SCOW's sailing through the race course;  they were from Royal Lymington, visiting Yarmouth for lunch, which had clearly been a great success.  This managed to bunch our race into a close quarters battle at the last leeward mark resulting in a double port/starboard protest, two multiple collisions (fortunately with no damage) and some extremely effective tactics by a YSC member who pulled his un-named team through to win in a nail-biting finish.

 

Our valiant PRO and umpire, overworked as he was and after some hours at his computer,  proclaimed the result, which fortunately left all clubs on good speaking terms.

 

The result was a tie between Blue 1 and Green 2 which miraculously revealed that we had a representative (Sue Hawkes and Doug Harckham respectively) in each of them.  In addition two RTYC sailors, K G-J and DH, received additional mementoes demonstrating the extreme efforts of their afternoon. Each was given a bucket and spade to assist them extricate themselves should ever they sail Scows on the Yar again and experience a repeat of the navigation problem that had so obviously plagued them as they sought to squeeze every inch of benefit from their chosen courses.  Not even a Scow sails well through long grass.

 

A huge vote of thanks was owed and duly passed both to Yarmouth SC in general for their hospitality and loan of their precious boats and to Melinda Measor in particular, Rear Commodore Sailing, for her hard work and tenacity in putting the event together for us.

 

 

Meanwhile, Clive Chalk shouldered his bag and headed for the hills...

 

On Saturday, the links of Freshwater Bay Golf Club, sun sparkling with dew, once again saw the annual contest between the golfers of the Royal Thames and the golfers of the Royal Solent YC. The weather was perfect and the hospitality of the outstandingly genial golfers of RSolYC as always was faultless. The views from the downs across the Solent to the mainland in the north and Freshwater Bay and the Channel to the South makes this a very special course. As usual, foursomes were played and despite courageous efforts on the part of the Thames  the result, based upon the esoteric Hunter-Oldershaw Rule, was once again a draw. The Thames team was: Peter Hunter and Jacques Delacave, Clive Chalk and Iain Macdonald-Smith, Ross Witherow and Richard Bundy, Stephen Mathews and Richard Prest, and Rupert Salmon and David Freeman. In order to square the numbers, one of us had to play with the Solent team and it was our great loss (and miscalculation) that the Solent gained Tony Bird who in a sportsmanlike way won his match!

 

This year, several of our stalwarts were marooned sailing and partying in the South of France. Next year diaries will hopefully allow their return and will be an excellent opportunity introduce new blood to the team and for the first time wrest this prestigious challenge back in favour of the Thames.

 

Following the strong showing of the Thames at the Royal Yacht Clubs Golf Day at Brockenhurst in May (2nd and 4th pairs) golfing members are encouraged to let Clive Chalk clive.chalk@btinternet.com) or Annabel Hunt know if they would like to take part in golfing future events for the Club.