Suffolk Yacht Harbour Spring Classic Regatta

In case you haven’t seen it, there is an excellent article on the SYH Spring Classic Regatta in the September edition of Classic Boat. Stellas feature heavily (as is only befitting!). Mind you I’m still bereft at not having been part of it and this article didn’t help!

 

Mersea Week

I hope a fair few of you will be managing to do Mersea Week this year. Sadly, however, once again I won’t be joining you for a major Stella points event. This time it’s due to a lack of crew rather than a lack of application by others! I hope all goes well and that the weather gods are kind to you. I look forward to receiving a report and will get something posted on the website as soon as I can after the event.

 

SYH/HPYC Autumn Classic Regatta

One event I have, however, managed to get my act together for is the Autumn Classics at Levington over the first weekend of September. Centaur is now sorted and I have crew (although we could do with another if anyone is up for it…) happy days!

 

When is a Spinnaker Not a Spinnaker…?

 A very good question it seems where the Stella racing rules are concerned. Those (lucky enough…) to have taken part in the Spring Classic Regatta can’t help but to have noticed the rule testing spinnaker being carried by Timoa. This was protested at the time but the protest was withdrawn when the sail was found (subject to measurement verification) to comply to the rules.

Andrew Gilmour, Timao’s owner, has been extremely open and helpful about the sail to the extent that he has lent it to the technical committee for appraisal and Tim Wood our Technical Advisor has borrowed it to try aboard L’Etoile. I await Tim’s report (Tim?) and fully expect it to prove to be a brilliant sail! In a sense, however, this is not the point. My concern and that of others I have spoken to is that we should avoid an “arms race” whereby if one boat has a reacher – sorry flat cut spinnaker, then we all must have if we have aspirations to be at the front of the fleet.

Now your opinion on the subject might be quite different and I would love to hear it. I intend to raise the matter at this autumn’s AGM as an agenda item by which time we will have marshalled all of the facts and as a democracy we can reach a consensus. Please feel free to contact me with your comments ahead of that though.

 

Website Articles

 I have appealed on several occasions for material from members to put on the website to keep it lively and interesting – it’s your class association and your website after all!

A couple of you have stepped up to the plate with really interesting historical items which will be on the website very shortly, so keep a look out for those. I can’t have too much stuff though, so please keep it coming! And don’t forget that you can comment on any of the articles published or place adverts, request crew, look for a crewing position etc. etc. etc.… Just email me or Christian, our website manager, with anything you would like posted and we’ll take it from there. Incidentally if you are a visitor to the site and not actually an association member but would like to get involved with Stellas as crew, I would love to hear from you – there almost always crewing positions available.

Going forward we hope to come up with some form of forum where paid up members can log on and comment, chat etc. Christian is currently looking into this and although I understand it’s not the easiest thing in the world to set up, I’m hopeful that we can get something going in the not too distant future.

Enjoy the rest of the season, hope to see you soon,

All the best,

Peter

Centaur #100