Alistair Tyrrell

30 October 2016 Sadly it was the last race of the year today, and an early departure for a 1030 start. Jonny was with me for the first time and we found a fairly steady F2 from the East. Five boats came out to race. Dick tried to get the race off a few minutes early as we were all milling around out there ready to go, but the start was a bit chaotic due to several getting caught by the tide and general confusion around the gate start so he had to abort the start and do the countdown all over again. On the restart we were pleased to be first away and began a long beat to Steel Can out to the east, beating into the easterly wind and into the tide. All boats seem to determine that the best course was to tack quite close inshore to keep away from the worst of the tidal current, the GPS smartphone track log below illustrates what we did. Jonny was on the helm and seemed to be enjoying it. We felt like we were almost inside the beach huts at one point but we were probably several metre...

16 Oct 2016 Nine boats took part in the up / down river race this year, and three RIBs of volunteer helpers. The morning began with wet and blustery conditions but the forecast was promising so the nine boats were towed up to the grassy bank above Arundel and were beached on the bank so the masts could be stepped and boats rigged. The sun had come out by now though the winds were gusty and variable around F4.  The first race up to the Black Rabbit pub got under way in good order at 1145 but the smaller boats struggeld to overcome the current and only the five bigger boats completed the course. Race officer Nick Clare had timed it well with the tide so we had plenty of time for lunch at the pub, other AYC members had arrived on foot or by road so we had a good sized group sitting outside in the autumn sunshine while we watched for the tide to begin to turn.  We were ready to race back down the river by 1345. All nine boats completed ...

2 Oct 2016 A nice bright day today though the gentle northerly wind was a bit cool. Susi was with me, we attempted to back out of the berth but got stuck aground on a bit of shallow mud behind me - that's never happened before! 20 turns on the keel handle to wind it up a bit, and a burst of reverse on the outboard and we were through and out OK. I have been talking to sail-makers about a new mainsail and they'd all looked at photos of Elsa and noted we hadn't got a luff downhaul properly rigged. We took a moment in the river today, after the usual mainsail hoisting, to rig a bit of line through an eye in the main and tweak the luff edge down tight. Five cruisers motored out into the sunshine about 1100 and the race officer, noting the northerly wind, found it hard to set a course giving us a beat into wind on the first leg. We'd all be up the beach. So he set a line start with a reach out to the weather station as the first leg. This meant a bit of a tricky start ...