Sailing news mid March
Published 12:31 on 14 Mar 2022
Just one race remains in our Spring series and there still everything to play for in most classes. Eighteen boats lined up just over a week ago for two races (R1 having been rescheduled) and were rewarded with a fresh and gusty breeze. Most of the class 1 crews, perhaps a little rusty after the off season, decided against spinnakers but not so the QTs.
The final race this Sunday looks promising with a favourable forecast at time of writing. The prizegiving will follow the racing as soon as practicable and therefore will be late morning; brunch-time, therefore, rather than lunch-time, as advised in the calendar.
The NoRs for all series have now been published and thanks to the working group, headed by Jeff Speller, for getting these documents out in timely fashion.
The NoR for this years Biscay Race (to Lorient) has also been published and we would ask that anyone considering participating in either the race or the Rally gets their application/expression of interest in sooner rather than later so as to help with our planning.
Lorient was chosen as it is the only primary port destination on Brittanys south coast which makes it something of a Hobsons Choice in this respect and although Lorient itself is commercialized in places, there are plenty of sailing related attractions in the area and the beautiful Golfe de Morbihan is right on the doorstep. Please consider joining us for this great event: we have a wonderful venue booked for the prizegiving dinner on the Wednesday evening and it should be a great event.
The Inter-Island Race returns in 2022, this year with new sponsors, Savills Estates. A southwards course will see the fleet arriving in St. Helier on Saturday 25th June and following a two-year absence, a big turnout is expected.
Prior to that, on 22nd May, we will be running the JE Inter-Parish Race again. The was a great event last year with over twenty entries and eleven parishes represented. We hope to go one better this year and have a (parish) full-house, as it were so, specifically calling yachties of St. John, now is your moment! We again have a small team co-ordinating the parish efforts and so if you were involved last year, you will likely be contacted again soon. Finally on this, we will be running the race in the more favourable East- about direction this year so we expect that a full circuit will be likely for most boats, adding to the sense of achievement for novice sailors.
Crew available/wanted We are in the process of updating this function of the website I the expectation of making a more useful resource for skippers and wannabe crews. There are people out there, with a wide variety of skill and experience and it really would make sense to use this facility to match up people from these groups. If you are looking for crew therefore, please avail yourself of this facility and, if possible/sensible consider talking on someone with limited experience. After all, we all had to start somewhere!
Nick O'Hare
Chairman of Sailing
14 March 2022