Minima YC May Merrie 09

The sun which has so far shone almost uninterrupted on Minima’s 120th anniversary season gave way to gentle showers for Monday’s May Merrie RNLI Round the Island Race.

But every cloud had a little puff of wind underneath it and the rain didn’t fall very long or very hard on the second running of what is becoming a highly entertaining addition to the club’s calendar.

The main question for the race officer setting the course for the open handicap is how many laps of the mini-island in question, Ravens Ait, Surbiton – recently seen on TV being cleared of squatters. Last year, in brisk winds and sunshine, we did about six. This time the conditions were more typically Thames, and in a fluky force one to two, apart from a little lively patch just upstream of the islet we had just two circuits to do.

The conditions would have been pretty challenging on Minima’s usual straight-up-and-down reach, but the light breeze swirling round the buildings on the Ait itself, the funnelling effect of the high steel pilings along the narrow Middlesex channel and pleasure boat traffic intolerant of tacking dinghies all added up to extra entertainment.

And when the fleet finally made it through to the top of the island, and caught a steady bit of wind for a change, they ran into a flock of trainee Toppers from Thames, Minima’s upstream neighbour, with flights of sand martins dodging between the sails feasting on a good hatch of mayfly. The martins charmingly nest in rivet holes in the piling round the southern, upstream, end of the islet. The Toppers were shepherded upstream out of the way by their safety boat.

The wind could be called south west, although this was more of an average than a bearing, and helms had to keep their wits about them. The traditional recourse to the eastern, Surrey, bank in these conditions was only intermittently successful, particularly on the long run/reach/beat home.

The premium was on skill (and it has to be said, luck) rather than boat speed, and three classes shared the honours, the Merlins unable to get far away from the ablest Enterprise or Rob Brooks’s solo Solo. Martin Hunter’s Atlantis, the visiting Rater from Thames, on whose home water most of the race is run, was unable to overcome its handicap, despite having time to go home and change before all the Ents had finished.

Minima is enjoying something of a resurgence in its 120th year, partly due to adding a canoe section, and the day marked our first competitive canoeing event. Erica Bishop managed to crew the winning Merlin and also win the ladies’ section of the canoe challenge, which involved quiz questions and observing nature as well as hard paddling. Add a bicycle race to Hampton Court and back and we could be looking at the Thames Triathlon next year.

Overall Results:

RNLI Round The Island Open
1 Denis Lockwood (Merlin, Minima)
2 Rob Brooks (Solo, Minima)
3 Andy Banks (Enterprise, Minima)

Visitors’ Cup
Peter Cuckow (RS Vision, Thames SC)

May Merrie Trophy (Minima only)
Andy Banks

An estimated £1,000 was raised for the lifeboats.

John Forbes, Minima

Minima YC Long Distance Open 2008

This will come as a bit of a shock to seafarers, but there are freshwater sailors who don’t really worry about the weather forecast. Many of us don’t get to sail that often, so we just roll up when we can, and take what comes.

Take Sunday (October 5th), for instance. You wake up to the sound of a steady downpour, and it rains on and off all morning. Down at the Minima in Kingston-upon-Thames the rain was intermittent, but the wind just went, absolutely absent, and it turned into an afternoon as grey and tepid as a bad cup of tea.

The start of the Autumn Long Distance open handicap was postponed, unusually for Minima, where zero wind conditions are regarded as normal, even preferred by some of the more cautious members. When it happened then it was a slow motion affair, although the usual suspects managed to get away in good order at the front of the fleet, notably the tall A-Raters from Thames Sailing Club, Steve and Kathy Collins’s Enterprise, The Old Grey Fox, and the Merlins of Dennis Lockwood, Paul Seamen and Ben Marshall. After the postponement there was just enough wind to make progress against a couple of knots of stream.

It was quiet . . . too quiet (thanks Steve). Those of us who had not checked our weather web sites were in a state of bored frustration. Little did we know. It should have been nail-biting tension. The breeze picked up a little. It had gone firmly round to the north, right behind us, and the back-markers began to catch up with the rest of the fleet. It picked up a little more. Then, without more ado, a bewildering succession of gusts came slamming in from all directions, stronger and stronger.

Five of the 13-strong fleet were laid flat in seconds. Weirdly a considerable swell appeared from nowhere, very unusual on the river, which added to the excitement. The surviving back-markers, now running hard in front of a solid force 4, had a few hectic seconds weaving our way through the upturned hulls before we got stuck in to a thoroughly entertaining afternoon’s sail.

Being on the Thames, shielded by trees and buildings, the breeze was never absolutely steady, particularly on the reach up to Hampton Court, where the bend meant it was blowing across the river. Chris Martin from Thames SC, sailing Stuart Gurney’s original Heatwave No 001, tested the excellent self-draining facilities of this interesting new single-hander several times and still managed to overhaul one of the slower Ents, to produce the best performance among the capsize victims. He came in seventh. The Heatwave is also said to excel in light airs, which was handy for the first minute or so of the race.

The wind never let up. The 5-mile trip to Hampton Court and back, which is very often a lively affair at this time of year, was complete in just over an hour for the Raters, ending with an exhilarating beat into the teeth of the northerly. Despite the strength of the wind (maximum gusts of 30mph were recorded at nearby Heathrow) its steadiness meant there were only two more retirements after the initial mayhem.

Most impressive performance came from the Old Grey Fox, which came home (just) ahead on the water of the leading Merlin, Minima Commodore Dennis Lockwood’s Bow Belle. The nature of the conditions meant the Merlins had little advantage over the Ent, despite some courageous kite flying, and it was a thorough test of crews’ agility and stamina. Pluckiest effort was probably Solo helm John Wilkey’s, who retired just a couple of hundred yards from the finish, after his fourth capsize.

The local handicap system at Minima once again proved its worth, with the Collinses beating the leading Rater, Osprey, helmed by Paul Browning, by less than 30 seconds on corrected time. The fact that Steve Collins was manning the computer is surely coincidental. Seriously, folks, the Minima Autumn long distance is one of the great river races, and this year’s was a classic.

Results of the Coronation Cup: 1 Steve and Kathy Collins (Minima), 2 Paul Browning, Graham Bartholomew, Josh Phillips (Thames), 3 Dennis Lockwood, Erica Bishop (Minima).

John Forbes, Minima

Minima YC May Merrie - Bank Holiday Race 2008

Minima’s Bank Holiday race this year was dedicated to raising money for the RNLI, with the open competition dubbed the RNLI Round the Island Race; more properly, Round the Islet, as the island in question is called Ravens Ait, measures about 100 yards by 50, and is situated in the Surbiton reach of the Thames. Ait or Eyot is Thames-speak for small island.

A brisk north-easter had competitors wondering if the lifeboats’ services might not be required in earnest, as balloons handed to your correspondent by the fund raising team for boat decoration purposes promptly blew away, but in the event there were no capsizes, although several crews came close. It probably made force 3-4 at times, which is Thames-speak for howling gale. Certainly some of the Ents were close to planning, which is a rare treat for us river folk.

The race was dominated on the water (although not after Minima’s handicappers had done their calculations) by two A Raters from Thames Yacht Club, Lady Iona and Lady Jane, which was no suprise as the course was six circuits of the aforementioned Ait, which is right on Thames’s doorstep. Their shorter-masted competitors strove to get in the way at times, as the channels round the island were cramped for space, but the Rater helms threaded their way without much difficulty through the 15-strong fleet and displayed a sound understanding of the racing rules.

Typically for the river there was as much excitement dodging the bank holiday cruiser traffic as there was from other competitors, with the Raters, Merlins and Enterprises sorting themselves out into small groups in that order fairly soon into the race. For once there was enough wind to blow the diesel fumes away.

The race raised some £2,000 for the RNLI, largely thanks to Barclay’s Bank and Legal & General, who matched pound for pound sponsorship raised by employees who took part. Organiser Giles Hobart was rewarded for his efforts with victory in the Minima May Merrie Trophy. His Topper, biblically, was last on the water, first on handicap.

Prizes were presented by the Mayor of Kingston-upon-Thames, Councillor Shiraz Mirza, whose cheerful speech stressed the value he felt river recreational activities represented for the borough, hopefully a good omen for Minima’s attempts to acquire its freehold from its landlord, Kingston Council.

Results (Minima unless stated):

RNLI Trophy.
1 Ben Marshall, Alex Cane (Merlin); 2 Martin Hunter, Sue Williams, Alistair McDonald (Thames, A Rater); 3 Dennis Lockwood, Erica Bishop (Merlin).

May Merrie Trophy.
1 Giles Hobart (Topper); 2 Andy Banks, Jackie Griffin (Enterprise); 3 David Cane, Valerie Edwards (Enterprise).

John Forbes, Minima

Merlin Open Sunday 8th June 2008 (Yachts and Yachting version.)

It really was a roller coaster ride for the Merlins at Minima on Sunday.

The course was on the straight Kingston reach, up one way, down the other, and the conditions were on the same north-south axis, a good Northerly wind, force 2-3 most of the time blowing straight in the teeth of the sort of solid 5-knot current traditionally met on the river in February. All in the brightest possible sunshine.

The starts were nervous affairs, competitors having to keep moving, balanced between strong wind and strong tide, before the all too brief swooping beat down, with the heavy stream on the lee bow producing tracks almost straight into the wind, making for maximum excitement and a tremendous feeling of speed and power, followed by a skidding handbrake turn across the windward, downstream mark, which was quite tight for space and also demanded careful judgement, and then on to the upstream treadmill.

Some cut it too fine and hit the mark, others  were over-cautious and left space for sharper helms behind to nip through. On the upstream leg the strangely warm North wind was generally strongest in the middle of the river, clear of the trees and buildings on the bank, but of course so was the stream, so there was a balance to be struck and at times helms were running straight up the middle in order to stay in a breeze strong enough to keep their spinnakers inflated. Then the wind would drop a fraction and everyone dived for the shallower water along the sides where the current was less strong. A fumble hoisting the kite meant  coming to a dead stop, or going backwards while still making good speed through the water.

The upstream, gybe,  mark demanded plenty of space to avoid the disastrous re-rounding demanded by the Minima’s local sailing rules, and then came the exhilarating rush back down towards the downstream mark just a couple of hundred yards above Kingston Bridge.

The safety boat took up station there, the crew reasoning that customers would be coming at  them like space invaders with very little notice, if there was a prolonged fall in the wind at the wrong moment.

The first race, with the strongest wind, was won narrowly by Mike Stephens of Tamesis, who also won the previous day’s vintage event, and showed that even in conditions in which tacking was relatively infrequent an older boat like his Flinkidink (1097) could still show others the way. Sadly Mike lost his recently-repaired rudder when he was in strong contention to win Race 2, and retired, leaving the way open for Alan Markham of Upper Thames to take that and the final race, and the honours for the day.

In his speech of thanks Alan labelled Minima ‘one of the Thames’s best kept secrets’. The locals will tell him, it ain’t always this good.

Results: Eric Archer memorial trophy (Merlin Rocket River Thames Series) 1 Alan Markham, Debbie Walker (Upper Thames); 2 Ken Duffell, Brian Corking (Tamesis); 3 Ben Archer, Chris O’Toole (Parkstone, Dorset); 4 Ben Marshall, John Wilkie (Minima). Chindit trophy (for vintage Merlins) Mike Stephens, Chris Johnson (Tamesis)

John Forbes, Minima

Minima Yacht Club Minima Regatta 2008

Sailors from five West London clubs converged on Kingston-upon-Thames at the weekend for Minima Yacht Club’s annual regatta.

There were 24 boats on the water for the three-races series, in conditions which sparkled on Saturday  and but faded mostly to grey on the Sunday, when the first race was postponed for lack of wind and eventually sailed in a soporific mist. On Sunday the marks were set close, for fear of the wind failing, and the excitement mostly came from having four different classes on collision courses with one another on a reach not much more than a quarter of a mile long.
Closest racing was between the three A Raters from Thames, reduced to two after a collision

in the first race which sent Lady Jane home on Saturday afternoon. Lady Iona and Wings were neck and neck right to the finish in the second race, and close for much of the third, their crews constantly urged to greater efforts by helms who appeared amazingly enthusiastic compared to the ranks of grumpy old men from Minima.

The other classes were dominated by the usual suspects, in the experienced shapes of Minima’s non-grumpy John Kemp in his Solo, Ken Duffell’s Merlin from Thamesis and Phil Chambers’s elegant dark blue Enterprise, Egalité, from Hampton. Egalité might be French for equality, but Phil did not seem to be  much in favour of this on the water, where he took  three firsts, showing no sign of effort at any point, always smooth and balanced.

Results (Minima unless stated). Enterprise: 1 Phil Chambers (Hampton), 2 Kevin Harris, 3

Alan Jales. Handicap class: 1 Alistair Edwards (Twickenham). Merlin: 1 Ken Duffell (Thamesis), 2 Ben Marshall. Solo: 1 John Kemp, 2 Rob Brooks. Thames Raters (Thames SC):  1 Chris Martin. 

John Forbes, Minima