Lough Swilly Yacht Club

Good turn out today for the Railway Tavern Regatta with 6 boats participating. The weather played its part also. At the start gun there was very little air. The wind did eventually fill in and gave us a nice beat to Spit. IRC fleet did end up in a bit of a lull at Saltpans but they did pick up momentum again. The club fleet had a shorter course thankfully.

Results as follows:

IRC:
1st Mako
2nd Niamh

Club:
1st Ladyhawk
2nd Hot Potato
3rd Cloudy Bay

A big thank you to Ronan and the staff of The Railway Tavern for laying on a fantastic spread, the hungry sailors certainly appreciated the food.
Thanks also to Robert for his OD duties today.

Hi All,

Details for Railway Tavern Regatta ;

There will be 2 races for both Fleets tomorrow,

The first will be a short course starting and finishing at Club line. The second will be much longer, once again starting and finishing at the club line.

Race 1, the club fleet will start first with IRC following 5 minutes after.

Depending on finishers the OD will then decide on which Fleet goes off first in the second race.

Printed Courses will be handed out prior to racing in the morning .

See you all there.

Over the last number of years we have relied heavily on the sailing secretary to create and make adjustments to the handicaps in the Club fleet.
The creation of the handicap and subsequent adjustments have been, for the most part, a reflection of the boat and crew as a unit.
If one part of the unit failed to perform the handicap was adjusted to the point where the TCF value was reflected in corrected times.
This is great when the crew was learning a new boat or the crew changed, when sails were coming to end of life, you had a few bad runs on the water etc.
This coming year we may introduce a system similar to IRC called VPRS.
VPRS will provide a handicap based on the boat. Sail condition, propeller type (fixed, folding) etc will also be reflected in the handicap. For instance all SunFast 37 will start with the same base handicap. Sail type, Sail measurements, propeller type, etc will determine the variation on this figure.
The emphasis on performance is then shifted to the boat handling.
VPRS.org has further information on their website. There is also a link to the certificates for some of the boats registered with VPRS. To view these click into the clubs links.
We hope that this will be raised at the AGM for further discussion, but in the meantime most questions are answered on the website.

A big thanks to all those who participated in this weekends events, namely Ramelton cruise and Portsalon Pint and Quart.

The Ramelton cruise had great turn out of both sail and power boats. On a very high tide the sail boats left Fahan and Rathmullan to make tracks to Ramelton. The power boats followed a little time after and soon passed out the sail boats… After a pretty wet trip up the meandering creek it was good to get a dry spot in Conways bar. All in there were 5 power boats, 3 yachts and 1 laser feva. The trip home was a little dryer and finished with a little adventure..getting into the marina in the dark.

The Portsalon P&Q had a great turn out with 12 boats taking part in the race today. In brisk winds it was a long beat to Swillymore with a pretty good swell to keep the decks clean. Once Swillymore was behind us the wind dropped and the sun made a welcome appearance. Unfortunately we were not able to get ashore but the sun made it pretty nice when sitting on deck enjoying a bite to eat and take in the views.

A handful of the fleet headed to Rathmullan and tied up, ventured ashore and enjoy some local hospitality. Results tallied and presentation made in the White Harte.

Congratulations to Japanphur on first place, Zutsy 2nd and KC on 3rd. Good to see a healthy fleet on the water for this event.

Thanks to Gerry for organising the pursuit timings and starting the boats from Fahan…. Cheers Richie.

Looking forward to a similar turnout for the Railway Tavern Regatta next Saturday @11:30am.

Regards

The details for Saturday’s cruise to Ramelton. Departure is 5.00pm from Fahan. High water Rathmullan is 1947hrs (4.7m).

Lets hope the weather plays its part tomorrow with sunshine forecast for the afternoon….Maybe a spot of sun cream required???

Mountain Mist will step in on Firsty’s behalf. Note, Mountain Mist has never travelled the Ramelton channel…any boat that wishes to travel in flotilla can do so with the knowledge that MM may hit bottom first!!!

Schedule as below:

5.00pm – depart Fahan
6.15pm – arrive Ramelton
6.45pm ‘ish– depart Ramelton (on a rising tide).

Conways Bar will host us for a Football Special Reception from 530pm to 630pm, and listen on Ch06 for more information on the day.

If you could drop an email or text to Peter or Fergal to let us know numbers it would help to let Conways know.

Regards…