Alistair Tyrrell

30 July 2016 With light westerly winds in the forecast and fine weather I decided, after 2 previous years going on other people's boats, this was the day to take Elsa down to the Owers Buoy. Formerly known as the Owers Light, when it used to be a lightship, the buoy is in the English Channel 10 miles southwest of Littlehampton. Susi and Dominik were with me and we assembled at the club around 0900. Nick was the race officer and he'd prepared some written sailing instructions showing the course for the day - from a start line set up outside the harbour, to our own Omar race mark, then 6 miles to East Borough Head (another buoy) then to Owers, and back the same way. There's no set start time for this race, the idea is to try and go around Owers just as the tide turns so you get the current helping you both ways. Looking at the light winds, and my plan to be there by 1400, we decided to go as early as we could so we put to sea just before 1000. Six boats were taking part...

24 July 2016 On Sunday, as part of the diamond jubilee series of events, the club had a combined dinghy and cruiser race. Georgia had brought a picnic so we had time to make a start on that before the race briefing at 1245 and we put to sea just after 1300. There was a fairly steady F4-5 from the southwest and bright skies most of the afternoon. The race officer had used the usual dinghy race marks but set them slightly further apart to make the lap longer than the dinghies usually see. For the cruisers it meant there was no need for GPS navigation as we could see where the next mark was. The cruisers got a 5, 4, 1, Go countdown for a 1400 start and we crossed the line near the middle of the fleet of 5 cruisers taking part. Five minutes later about the same number of dinghies had their start and set off after us. Conditions were quite tiring and we struggled a bit on the first beat, with me on the helm and Georgia struggling to haul the sheets in as we tacked around.We found ours...