After a great day for Commodore Jeremy and Rose spectating at close range
the RMSIR start organised by Andy on Eddys great little boat , so much more
interesting than watching from a distance on RSYC s gin palace, our thanks to
Andy and Eddy who went to a lot of trouble to launch and retrieve the boat
and to Rama who when we came alongside VG Offshore as Emy was clearing a
big lump of the boats prop handed the Commodore a cold beer !
Shades of things to come when we race to PD next year
4 intrepid participants turned out on another excellent day for sailing in the
unusual absence of Vice Commodore Rama in Lady VG competing in the
RMSIR Regatta , hopefully arrived in Pangkor Commodore Jeremy in his
trusted if battered Jerry , with new member Sameer as crew , Rear
Commodore Jega who has been sailing so well recently in Alice crewed by his
sons , a formidable team off shore once we get Leopad Dream his X 34
sorted , Gavin with James deputising for his regular stalwart Yasid away
sailing with Rama in an even more battered Ratatosk ( AKA the Squirrel ) and
Peter known as Swiss Peter to differentiate him from Germany Peter ( with
Astrid ) currently missing as indeed is Bosun Rainer in Germany even Gerhard
did not come , total desertion of our German contingent with new members
Phoebe and Drew in Quicksilver
An even start in light wind saw the fleet tack down the river , with cross tacking
and place changingbut Jerry led out of the river with Alice down wind and
going slightly faster . the Squirrel followed Jerry at a respectful distance , and
Quicksilver in the mix
One of the greatest challenge of PSC Squib racing is the tide , outside the river
in the open sea it is a combination of east west river tide and the Melaka
Straits North South tide , which we can see on the ships laid up in the Straits ,
Jerry convinced as usual we would be fighting to round Selat Buoy stood out
to sea on starboard , the ships incidentally were pointing north which is the
direction of the flood , the tide alhough weak had just changed and was
ebbing , Quicksilver and the Squirrel tacked following Alice . Rounding the
mark yet again Jega was right and led by miles , followed by Quicksilver the
Squirrel and a long way behind Jerry . Spinnaker up except Quicksilver who
had managed to pull the spinnaker halliard through the mast but is a well
known fan of goosewinging ( he won a race single handed doing this ) ( Peter
use the jib halliard next time !)
Again the tide played strange tricks it was definitely ebbing but Alice in the
middle did okay loosing a little but just too far ahead , Jerry well behind fancied
his chances on the south shore which had paid 3 weeks before for Alice , the
Squirrel showing great speed on the shalower north shore held off for a really
excellent 2 nd place with Jerry third and spinnaker less Quicksilver 4 th ,
Two things are notable with our racing, 1):provided the boats are equally
clean there is little difference in speed between these one design boats and 2)
regular racing has really improved the sailing standard , we have a number
who started with very little sailing experience and are now as fast as anyone
Racing was followed by the usual interesting post race debriefiwith all together
over a cold beer
We would so like some of the real racers from our noisy neighbours to enjoy
real sailing again
We are already planning our 2022 racing Program
JCC 10/12/21