Before doing this a huge THANK YOU for those John K , James , Charles , Yasid and later Vice Commodore Rama who turned out on Saturday 9 th for our Leopad Dream work party, the objective was to get the boat in proper order for the RSYC Mini regatta on23/24 and the PSC One Fathom Bank Race on 6 th November ( tides poor on the in between weekend ) The main objective was to change the furler which although opinions differed was difficult to operate in high winds when most needed
John had studied fitting the new Plastimo one but no one had envisaged the problems getting the old one off , recently we have come across a new problem , different metals bonding/rusting to each other and we had another example here , we managed to disconnect the forestay and the furler itself but we could not get the remnants over the forestay fitting , in the end Rama recovered from spending the night on the mud off RSYC suggested cutting the forestay , which with Rahims grinder we did , John kindly volunteered to work on fitting the new one on Sunday which except one missing screw he and Jason sucessfully managed , and we have to get a new Sta Lok from UK , however the team enjoyed some success fitting the new jib sheet block ,baling a quantity of diesel water from the bilges and starting the engine using Jeremys Chinese booster , amazing thing 3 ins by 2 ins by 1 ins , recal l the huge thing we used to carry , suggest every boat should carry one , jeremy recalls on one RSYC Pangkor Race Amir s Offshore fishing boat coming from Pangkor to the Sembilans with a charger ! On that subject Rama was seen towing it to Port Klang outboard !
Now to the race , good tide and nice breeze greeted us on Sunday morning and our 6 starters , John and Jason ( birthday boy thanks for the beer !) very kindly elected to forego racing to fit Leopad Dreams new furler, almost complete with one screw missing ( on its way from UK with the new sta lok , none available in Asia )
So Lady VG ( Rama and Gerhard) Jerry ( Jeremy and .Mugen) Tom ( Harro and Simon who subsequently joined the club ) Ratatosk /squirrel ( Gavin making a welcome return after quarantine and Yasid ) Alice ( MartinKiwi and James ) Quicksilver ( Peter and daughter ) came to the line or more exactly were on the wrong side of the line albeit just, with inadequate wind to make it back ,the smart one was Harro who put his engine back on
What to do ? The Race Officer himself just on the wrong side decided on balance all starting would not influence the result , instructed the fleet to start which with the tide under the boats were pleased to do , most unusually the wind was from the east so a run , only Jerry was brave enough to try a spinnaker which of course tangled , hey presto the wind as ever filled inform the west and off we all went long tack beat out with usual divergence on the best way to Selat buoy
Jerry and Quicksilver went to port the others to starboard , it looks so simple but it isn’t , jerry not sure sailed for another 5 minutes after Quicksilver tacked and unusually just made it Quicksilver did not , Tom showing even moderately clean boats can compete went way over to starboard and caught up
Jerry happily rounded followed by Quicksilver and Tom , then Lady VG ,Alice and Ratatosk , Jerry was glad of his nice lead when the rope holding the spi boom broke , managed to tie it to to the mast and the sail seemed quite happy , great reach back and Jerry finished 1409 which with a 1200 start is almost a record , great sailing conditions we were met on the dock by new member Andy who with a great looking camera took so good photos ,he and his fellow new member Benny both from RSYC are planning to bring their motor boats to Pulau Indah , Andy made it clear they are not into fishing for hire and are therefore just motor yachts , Andy joined us in the club room , Jason was celebrating his birthday on the Monday and Commodore Jeremy the previous Wednesday ad Rose had brought a black forest gateau which was shared with jasons beer !
A great apres sailing get together occurred in the club room with usual discussion, Gerhards comment…. He who makes the least mistakes wins !! with our sailing there are endless opportunities to make mistakes
Welcome to new member SimonThompson
Finishing order ( to be noted by Martin C for the results table )
1 Jerry
2 Quicksilver
3 Tom ( Harro)
4 Lady Vg
5Alice
6 Ratatosk