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 This was protested at the time but the protest was withdrawn when the sail was found (subject to measurement verification) to comply to the rules.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

Hi,

Just to clarify the race dates for Mersea Week 2016, they are as follows: Thursday 26th August, Friday 27th August & Saturday 28th August.

A member kindly pointed out to me that this was what was agreed at the AGM, but not what I put in the Spring 2016 Update.

Apologies for any confusion caused, the three dates shown above are correct. Please ensure that you are up to date with your SCA subscription before entering or I’m afraid your results won’t count!

Good luck and I hope to see many of you there. Now that I finally (almost…) have a fully functioning Stella once again I am, however, suffering from a distinct lack of crew! If any of you are at a loose end or know of someone who might be, please let me know. Thanks.

Best regards,

Peter, Centaur #100

A very warm welcome to Lizzi Thistlethwayte the new owner of #77 Shaula and Rui Ferreira & Anke Eckardt the new owners of #84 Happy Returns.

I have sailed with Lizzi a couple of times when David Copp owned Shaula and look forward to meeting up again on the water and socially now that she is a member. Shaula is in good hands and will, I understand, be based at Aldeburgh.

I look forward to meeting Rui & Anke who, I gather, will be keeping Happy Returns at Ballydehol, Co. Cork. It seems that Happy Returns has benefitted from huge amounts of work and is ready for the next few decades!

Good luck, fair winds and happy sailing to you all!

All the very best,

Peter D, Centaur #100

Sadly there are still a few of you out there who have not got round to paying your association membership fees – they were due in April! Now the last thing I want to have to do is get on my high horse about this, but although I’m sure it is due to an oversight in most cases, it is unfair to those who have paid. We are currently still only asking £15 to cover admin costs and I know that Peter Haldane has sent out several polite reminders so please pay up forthwith! Just to make it easy the bank details are as follows:

Stella Class Association.   Barclays Bank, Plaistow.   Account Number 60020192.     Sort Code 20-67-90

I have noticed that amongst the placed boats at the SYH Classics were several whose owners have not yet paid . Strictly speaking this means that they are not paid up members of the SCA and therefore the result does not count towards the Stella Worlds. As I am still of the opinion that this is due to oversight, I do not intend to apply this sanction provided that fees from the offenders are received forthwith. Going forward, however, this will apply. Put simply, if you are not a fully paid-up member at the time of competing in a points event the result will not count!

Peter D

 

I have just been speaking to Peter Haldane who reminded me that subscriptions are now due. If you could forward your payment to him ASAP that would be really helpful. I’m looking into the possibility of member benefits going forward but clearly these, if achievable, will only be available to fully paid up members. Watch this space…

Peter

Spring 2016 Update

Welcome to the first update of 2016. I’m afraid I must start with an apology for the lack of communication thus far – nobody told me that retirement would be this busy…  I hope you have all kept well over the winter and, having remained free of the bugs that do the rounds, are now enthusiastically preparing your Stella for what I hope will be a wonderful Summer! Although it has seemed quiet as far as the SCA is concerned since the AGM, a lot has been happening behind the scenes.

 

 

Web Site

 

I promised at the AGM that, having been elected as the new General Secretary, one of my priorities would be to update the website, making it newsier, more interactive and essentially our primary means of communication as an organisation. We have done better than that; we now have a whole new website! We have also gone for a new snappier domain name stellaclass.org This should be easier to remember and for search engines to find. Stellasail.org.uk will now link to the new site so will still work for the next couple of years or so. Please go and have a look, I really hope you like it and I would greatly appreciate your feedback – good or bad! Christian Beaumont, our new web designer and member of Tim Wood’s crew on L’etoille, has worked really hard on it and I think it’s going to be a real asset. Christian will look after the advertisement section for us going forward.

 

As I mentioned, I intend us to use the website for of our communication so will post all future communiqués there and alert you by email of anything significant that has been added.  As I intend to keep the site lively however, please visit on a regular basis to keep up with what’s going on. Christian and I have got a lot of ideas on how we would like to develop the site but It belongs to all of us so I really would like to hear from you with your ideas. secretary@stellaclass.org

 

 

Hull Sheathing

 

You will recall that, following a fairly lively debate at the AGM, we resolved that a technical document be produced by a subcommittee in an effort to steer would be sheathers in the right direction. The subcommittee was to comprise The Secretary, The Technical Advisor and one other. The “one other” was Philip Waring, owner of Stardust and we got stuck into the task pretty much straight away, producing the document within the agreed three months from the AGM. This is now posted on the website and will be appended to the rules. I have attached a copy for your convenience and once again ask for your feedback. secretary@stellaclass.org

 

 

2016 Racing Programme

 

Conscious that Spring is upon us, herewith the all-important dates for your diary:

 

SYH Classic Regatta (Stella Worlds 1,2 & 3) 11 – 12 June syharbour.co.uk

 

Mersea Week (Stella Worlds 3,4,5 & 6) 22 – 27 August merseaweek.org

 

HPYC Regatta (Stella Worlds 7 & 8) 3 – 4 September hpyc.com>racing

 

Early Season Social

 

Last year we held a very pleasant Early Season Supper at The Coast Inn, West Mersea on what used to be called the Whitsun Bank Holiday Weekend. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend last year’s event, but I understand it was good. Would you like to repeat it this year, do something similar or something completely different? Let me know your thoughts ASAP and we will get something organised if there is sufficient interest. secretary@stellaclass.org

 

 

 

 

 

A final thought – “There are three types of yachtsmen; those who have been aground, those who are aground and liars…”

 

 

This is what happens when two competitive guys push their luck a little bit too far on a falling tide!

 

 

 

 

 

Good Luck with your preparations for the season – let’s hope it’s a classic. I look forward to seeing many of you on the water and in the bar…

 

All the very best,

Peter

Centaur 100

Autumn newsletter 2015: