Sailing Events & Calendar
| February 12, 2010 9:00 AM | to | February 17, 2010 6:00 PM |
| February 20, 2010 9:30 AM | to | February 22, 2010 8:30 PM |
INDEPENDENCE DAY ROUND ST LUCIA RALLY
Sir Garnet Gordon Trophy
Saturday 20th & Sunday 21st February 2010
organized by St Lucia Yacht Club
Open for all classes.
SKIPPERS BRIEIFNG:
Friday 19th February 2010 @ 5.30 pm at the Yacht Club.
RALLY:
Saturday 20th February 2010 @ 9.30am: START RODNEY BAY – FINISH VIEUX FORT
Creole Buffet at the Old Plantation Yard > 5 minutes walk from the docks. (RSVP)
Sunday 21st February 2010 @ 9.30am: START VIEUX FORT – FINISH RODNEY BAY
*** FREE BERTHING AT THE RODNEY BAY MARINA
*** Get together by arrival in the marina at the BOARDWALK (Cafe Ole)
PRIZE GIVING:
Monday 22nd February 2010 Independence Day at the Yacht Club @ 5.30pm
BBQ available subject to bookings (RSVP)
Registration Fee (dinners not included) EC$100.00
Entry details and more info contact:
Sean: 722.0077 or kaiso.sailing@gmail.com
Danielle: 718.5010 or slycsocialsecretary@gmail.com
Sailing Calendar 2010
* PORT LOUIS REGATTA - January 29 to February 2.
* Sunday, January 31 - Winter Series continues for J24’s & Yachts.
* FEBRUARY 2010:-
* SCHOELCHER Regatta Martinique 12th- 17th February 2010 (Junior sailing)
* Sunday, February 14 - Winter Series continues for J24’s & Yachts.
* Junior Sailing & Training Program – every Thursday (pm) & Saturday (All Day).
* Sunday, February 21 & Monday, February 22 - INDEPENDENCE DAY ROUND THE ISLAND RACE / CRUISE. – With stopover somewhere in the South of the island
* AND / OR:
* Sunday, February 21 & Monday, February 22 - SLYC J24 ‘CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP’ – with 3 races on Sunday & 3 races on Monday.
* MARCH 2010:-
* Sunday, March 7 - Final Day of the Winter Series for J24’s & Yachts.
* Junior Sailing & Training – every Thursday (pm) & Saturday (All Day).
* Sunday, March 21 - Spring Series begins for J24’s & Yachts.
* APRIL 2010:-
* BEQUIA REGATTA – Good Friday, April 2 to Monday, April 5.
* Junior Sailing & Training Program – every Thursday (pm) & Saturday (All Day).
* Sunday, April 18 - Spring Series continues for J24’s & Yachts.
* MAY 2010:-
* Saturday, May 1 to Monday, May 3 - St LUCIA J24 OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP – 4 races Saturday – 4 races Sunday – 2 races Monday.
* MOUNT GAY REGATTA, BARBADOS - Thursday, May 13 to Sunday, May 16.
* Junior Sailing & Training – every Thursday (pm) & Saturday (All Day).
* Sunday, May 30 - Spring Series continues for J24’s & Yachts.
* JUNE 2010:-
* Saturday June 12 - SLYC OPTIMIST & LASER CHAMPIONSHIP.
* Sunday, June 13 - Summer Series continues for J24’s & Yachts.
* Sunday, June 27 - Summer Series continues for J24’s 7 Yachts.
* JULY / AUGUST - JUNIOR SUMMER CAMP TBC
* JULY 2010:-
* July 9, 10 & 11 - IC24 PREMIER’S CUP, TORTOLA (Junior Sailors)
* Sunday, July 11 - Summer Series continues for J24’s & Yachts.
* Sunday, July 25 - Summer Series FINAL for J24’s & Yachts.
* 25 July – 2 August Carriacou Regatta Festival
* AUGUST 2010:-
* Sunday August 1 - EMANCIPATION DAY REGATTA - To Marigot Bay & Return – (2 races).
* Saturday, August 7 - MARIGOT BAY RACE DAY - From Marigot Bay to Rodney Bay & Return – (2 races).
click on picture for pictures
Saturday 12th, Sunday 13th & Monday 14th December 2009
Social Events
| January 6, 2010 | ||
| 11:30 AM | to | 5:30 PM |
WORLD ARC Flotilla Wednesday 6th January 2010
click for story
CAROLS AFLOAT Christmas Flotilla 5.30pm
“It is Christmas in the Heart that puts Christmas in the air” (W.T. Ellis)
CAROLS AFLOAT 2009
What a way to some up the inaugural Carols Afloat. I don’t think any one of the people who participated would be able to argue with that.
On Tuesday the 22nd December a total of 13 uniquely decorated boats and 2 IGY RBM boats participated in what was hopefully the 1st of many Carols Afloat Christmas events. Certainly from this writers view point the event was a tremendous success! The boats that participated brought the joy that is Christmas spirit from their hearts and souls to many boats around the Rodney Bay Area.
On Tuesday afternoon, if you happened to be passing the IGY Rodney Bay Marina around 4.30pm a great many preparations could be seen, be it large inflatable Santa’s (palm tree included)(thanks to Hullabaloo) or as many large decorative flags as could possibly be acquired from various sources!
At precisely 5.30 (Caribbean time) all of the 15 boats participating met outside the entrance to the Rodney Bay Marina, craft participating ranged in size and shape from the lead boat “Hullabaloo” through various sizes of yachts (some of which had only just arrived on island through the ARC event last month) down to the St Lucia Yacht Clubs crew on board “Lucia” an Impulse 21 keelboat.
Come 6pm the whole graceful procession set of with our in house DJ pipeing an eclectic mix of traditional carols with a few carib vibes mixed in for good measure.
No sooner had we set off than disaster struck! One of the many Christmas torches on “Lucia” died so we had to improvise; with our extensive instructor background prepared for every event a spare mag-light was brought forth and held up the show for us. Oh and a few more unfortunate of us hit bottom near pigeon island.
After these few teething problems the rest of the tour went extremely well with most getting into the Christmas spirit by singing joyous melody’s, at least this was the case on “Lucia” as we couldn’t hear much over the noise of our outboard motor!
With a cool beer in sight the flotilla headed back from the terrors of the open seas into the “Well Lit” inlet for a fly by on the Edge restaurant and the end of the parade.
After tying up all crews converged on H20 restaurant and bar for the Prize giving and free beer courtesy of Heineken brewery. Prizes were given to the best decorated, most improvised, best crew uniform as well as a whole host of others! All prizes were donated by local companies, amongst which featured “Fire Grill”, “Delirious”, “The Edge” , “Columbian Emeralds”, “Café Ole”, “Rain Forest Sky Rides” , “Steel Pan Band Harmonites”, “Spinnakers”, etc.
In all an extremely enjoyable evening was had by all and if you are to talk to anybody who participated I’m sure you’d receive many a tall tale of the high seas, possibly even a few about the joy brought to all through the wonder of Christmas and all who participated.
Special thanks goes to : -
IGY Rodney Bay Marina (free birth for the night for the participating boats & DJ Mickey), St Lucia Yacht Club, All sponsors and the boats – “Hullabaloo”, “Lucia”, “Catar”, “Kaiso”, “Gizmo”, “Nomad”, “One Time”, “Boldly Go”, “Reel Extreme”, “Twice Eleven”, “Guiding Light”, “Fair Encounter”, “Endless Summer” and both IGY boats that participated. I’m sure that next year the fun will continue and for many years to come.
Submitted by Callum (Sailing Instructor SLYC)
Christmas Eve 24th December 2009 & Christmas Day Beach Lunch BBQ 25th December 2009 12.30pm
New Years Eve 31st December 2009 from 7pm
“World ARC welcomes in 2010 with a Bang! (News article from World Cruising Club Website)
World ARC 2010-11 participants enjoyed a fantastic New Year’s Eve party at the St Lucia Yacht Club last night. With a complimentary barbecue and drinks, and free bubbly at midnight, the New Year was welcomed in with style.
St Lucia Yacht Club, located near the entrance to Rodney Bay on the warm sands of Redruit Beach, provided the perfect viewing platform for the spectacular fireworks display, which illuminated the bay to loud cheers from the revelling crowds beneath.
World ARC participants took no time in joining in with the local crowds in their New Year’s Celebrations, with the street parties carrying on into the small hours. Even with a week still to go before setting sail, it seems the World ARC 2010-11 has already socially become a success!
Many participants have chosen an adrenaline-packed way of getting rid of their New Year’s hangovers today – on the Tree Top Canopy Adventure Tour. Heading into the rain forest of St Lucia’s eastern coast, adventurers zip through the air on 11 different lines between the trees at up to 50ft above the forest floor – rapidly cleansing their heads of any over-indulgence from last night!”
News
“Journey to the World ARC Flotilla 2010″ story by Duncan Gray
“Shall we do the ARC ?”
Pete, my neighbour and dinghy race skipper for the winter series in our local sailing club at Hythe thought about my question for a few seconds and then said “I’d have to check with Lyn”” (his partner).
To set the scene, it was a cold February day in 2005, we were surfing in his Merlin Rocket at 12 knots with the spinnaker set and leading the race fleet by 100 yards. Southampton water at that time of the year is a pretty inhospitable place, wet suits are mandatory, when it rains it feels like a shower of ice crystals hitting your face, and getting knocked down or capsized (a not uncommon occurrence in a Merlin Rocket) means getting very cold in places you really don’t want to get that cold (even in a wet suit). My yacht at that time was a Hanse 301 named ‘Dancing Demon’, a very seaworthy design but a little small to live aboard in comfort, so my thoughts had already moved on to a boat with a long keel, heavy displacement, standing headroom and a good galley, in short a ‘proper blue-water cruiser’.
Three years later, I’d sold ‘Dancing Demon’, searched for and found ‘Sephina’, Pete was now the pround father of Daniel (3) and Lyn was expecting Daniel’s sibling (soon to enter the world as Jamie), Lyn had agreed that Pete could join the boat for the Atlantic crossing with the ARC, so the entry forms were filled in, the fees paid, and our ARC 2009 had begun.
‘Sephina’ is one of those boats that people in the know stand back and say “she’s a proper yacht”. Designed by Holman & Pye in the late sixties, she’s a Super Sovereign, built in 1972, 35ft on deck, nearly 9 tons displacement, 3/4 length keel, ketch rigged, in short a ‘go anywhere yacht’. (more info ….. www.sovereign35.com) . All I had to do was turn her from a coastal cruiser into an ocean passage maker. The next year was spent in a whirlwind of refitting the boat, offshore training courses, closing my business and preparing myself for my first ocean crossing.
The passage south from Southampton to Las Palmas to join the ARC was not without problems and I learnt some valuable lessons …..
Lesson number one …. check the things you can see before setting sail !
Crossing from St Peter Port (Guernsey) to L’Aberwrach (France), the spinnaker halyard freed itself from the deck, streamed out astern and wrapped itself around the wind generator at the top of the mizzen mast. Fortunately the refit had included fitting mast steps, so climbing the mast & recovering the halyard proved an easy ten minute job.
Lesson number two …. check the things you can’t see before setting sail !
We were running south at night from La Coruna (Spain) in 30 knot winds and 12 – 15 foot seas when I noticed a faint clonk from the steering whenever the rudder took up the weather helm. The next day, having made it to Bayona, inspection of the rudder stock provided a shock. The nut on the link rod universal joint was loose and hanging on by a couple of threads, if we’d sailed much further it would probably have let go completely.
Lesson number three …. beware the weather forecast !
Having reached Lagos (Portugal), we waited, ‘calm-bound’ for ten days. We’d motor sailed most of the way from La Rochelle (France) with little or no wind, but for the next passage to Las Palmas motoring wasn’t an option as our range of 300 miles would get us less than half way, so a good sailing wind was essential. Finally the wind forecast looked promising so we checked out and set sail. The predicted NE 15 knot wind quickly veered south, so we had the choice of sailing SE toward Gibraltar or SW toward Madeira, not a difficult decision as Madeira was only 450 miles away and would only add around 150 miles to the trip. Then the wind died, so on with the engine again hoping to find some wind further south …. would we ever start sailing !
Lesson number four …. listen to the boat, if she isn’t happy, she’ll let you know !
During that first night out from Lagos, having succumbed to a bout of seasickness, I woke for my watch feeling pretty rough, and noticed the exhaust note of the engine had changed a little. The noise slowly worsened to the point that I decided to stop the engine. We took stock …. the sky was overcast so no power from the solar panels, there wasn’t much wind so no power from the wind generator and without the engine no power from the alternator, the nearest island was Porto Santo still 350 miles away, we had plenty of food and water and the batteries were fully charged … not much choice but to make the best course and sail very slowly. Now Porto Santo is a delightful island, but the options to repair a 37 year old diesel engine are zero, but at least we could plug in to shore power and recharge the batteries. My diagnosis was a blown head gasket. Ok, not a good idea to run the engine for long but it would get us out of one harbour, and into the next. My third crew member was flying to join us in a week, so with emails & phone calls, spares were ordered and tools from home organised. At last the promised trade winds started to blow, so with fully charged batteries we left the marina and set sail for Gran Canaria. With NE winds of 15 – 20 knots it took just 58 hours to sail 300 miles, we motored into Las Palmas at midnight, with the engine popping and banging and sounding very sick indeed.
The next two weeks flew by in a whirlwind of ARC seminars & events, engine repairs, entertaining friends & family visiting from home, shopping for stores for the Atlantic crossing and making final preparations to the boat. Departure day finally arrived, the atmosphere in Las Palmas was partytime … a wonderful send-off for a big adventure. Twenty two days one hour twenty three minutes and thirty six seconds later we crossed the finish line in Rodney Bay, lowered the sails and motored into the Marina, were met with greetings from friends as we moored, and rum punch and fresh fruit waiting for us …. wind down time at last.
Lesson number five …. Beware the innocent squash bottle (extract from our ARC log)
The Mystery of the exploding apple juice, Thursday afternoon (day 11)
There was I just before lunch, innocently typing an email when a loud ‘BANG’ came from the galley (ok it’s only three feet from the chart table), suddenly followed by a cold shower of something wet & sticky. Our cook, Robin, had saved half of the contents of a carton of apple juice (at least that’s what he told us it was) in a squash bottle and hadn’t noticed it had started to ferment (we assume). Everything in the galley, companionway and nav-station was dripping and smelling of rough cider, and I’d only just changed into a new snowy white tee-shirt !
Lesson number six ….
Fatigue can fuddle the brain (extract from our ARC log)
0330UTC Wednesday 9th December 2009. “Skipper, there’s a ship coming up astern, very fast”.
I was off watch, sound asleep for a change when Pete shook me awake wanting to call the ship on VHF to establish it’s intentions. Now to set the scene, since the fleet separated south of Gran Canaria, we’d seen two ships within the first few days, and then two yachts (neither in the ARC) and the top of another mast at some distance (so other vessels had been a bit of a rarity). It was a clear starlit morning dark enough to see the Milky Way (no not the kind you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite).
“It looks like a cruise liner, lots of lights along the side, but I can’t make out the nav lights yet” says Pete. I climbed out of my bunk, carefully negotiating over Robin’s bunk so as to try and not wake him unnecessarily, and made my way to the companionway, thinking, ‘if it’s coming fast enough to worry Pete, then it must be the Queen Mary 2′. “If you can see all along the side, how is it coming toward us then” asked I. On closer inspection, it appeared (to my sleep fuddled brain) to be becoming airborne. Just then, the cloud bank shifted, and lo and behold, there’s a pale white crescent slowly ascending into the heavens. “Which VHF channel do you think we should use then Pete, 16 or 77 ?”
My crew were due to fly home after Christmas, which for a few days looked unlikely with the threatened British Airways strike, but that was quickly resolved and we finally relaxed and started to enjoy life in St Lucia. The first few days were filled with ARC parties, a sightseeing trip around the island, lots of rum and getting used to a world that had stopped rocking and rolling. Having read about it, on Christmas Eve we finally visited the St Lucia Yacht Club, and a warmer welcome would be difficult to find. Sadly, we’d missed the ‘Christmas Carols Afloat’ event as we’d been south to explore the coast for a few days, but would we like to join in with the Christmas Day on the beach barbecue ? I’d been told that St Lucia was a paradise island, and a paradise it’s proved to be. Within a few days I’d made some new friends, enjoyed my first New Year on the beach, joined the Yacht Club, and been talked into joining the World ARC Flotilla.
click for the story
Lesson number seven …. Sieze the Day !
For ten years I’d been dreaming of escape from the rat-race & blue water sailing, but always finding reasons to not take the plunge. Remember …. Life isn’t a rehearsal and sometimes opportunity only knocks once.
What an adventure it’s been. Since leaving Southampton, I’d seen stunning sunsets and sunrises, glorious star filled night skies, dolphins, whales, flying fish, squalls, thunderstorms, flat calms, big waves. At times I’d felt elation, frustration, depression, boredom, trepidation but never once was I frightened. I’d learnt to trust my boat and know that if I looked after her, she’d look after me and my crew. The weather gods had been kind, and through good fortune and careful preparation my first ocean passage was now part of ARC history, our handicapped finish position was 118th from 158 starters in our cruising class, very creditable for the 2nd oldest yacht in the fleet (& 3rd slowest rated). I’d started the journey as a relatively inexperienced coastal sailor, taken on old boat, refitted it myself and nursed it through all of the problems, crossed an ocean to fulfill a dream, and proved that you don’t need megabucks to sail successfully on blue water.
Submitted by Duncan Gray, skipper of ‘SEPHINA’, ARC-2009 entry number 230
“Please Don’t Stop The Carnival” True story by Edgar Roe
A gentle cruise, true story by Ian Gordon!
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