Attached are the Sailing Instructions and the list of Entries and their Allocated Handicaps for Race 2 on May 20.

The race will be conducted for the Association by the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria with David LeRoy, RYCV Race Director.

Racing evolutions begin at 10:30am.

Adjustments to allocated handicaps of several yachts have occurred. The changes were made to start a process where all starters will have a fair chance to take out the corrected time result.

The Classics “local” ACH calculation process, that averages yachts last 5 BCH results, is close to the procedure used by Yachting Victoria. The BCH calculation process indicates trends in the racing performance of each yacht and their skippers and crews generally over a range of sailing conditions. Because our fleet covers a wide range of performance capabilities, a small amount of discretion outside the YV formula has to be used.

Generating yacht handicaps is an inexact science. We all work hard to maintain our Classics in racing trim. No one enjoys racing, knowing how hard they work on their boat, the assigned handicap is not a fair reflection of their boats capability. The fleet handicapper, who you all know and love, will endeavour to sustain this fairy tale.

The Association will now acknowledge the Skipper and crew of the yacht that takes out the corrected time result of each race in this and future series with a suitable 750 ml liquid trophy.

A story of our Race 1, with some images, was published on the Sail World news web site and published in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Here’s the link to see what was sent out.

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Classic-Yachts-2012-Winter-Series—Cyan-takes-the-silver/96978

So it’s all ready to happen, next Sunday morning at 10:30 am

Regards and hard sailing to all.

Peter Costolloe

CYAA Handicapper

Entries and Handicaps

Sailing Instructions

Classic-Yachts-2012-Winter-Series—Cyan-takes-the-silver

In ideal wind strength and Bay sea conditions, a fleet of 24 Classic Yachts started in our first race of the 2012 winter series.

“Cyan”, 3 cheers must go out to her for the performance she put in today. From a spot on start by her skipper, Craig Brown, with her crew holding the kite to the absolute last moment on the first run and flawless rumb line windward beat to the weather mark,  Cyan continually ate into the time differential of the fleet  leaders, “Kingurra” and “Acrospire III”, to come home first on corrected time and take the silver.

One other notable performance was “Serifa’s”. Her work on the windward leg under the helm of Michael McTavish where she overcame the wave chop and held position against the fleets longer waterline yachts and holding max waterline speed on the downhill reach, allowed her to knock off Peter McDonald’s Pastime II and take out fourth place.

Another powerful start by “Renene”, with Kent Bacon and his crew, put her in good position to hit the line flat out and into clean air.

A notable point of the day, except for one incident, was the lack of start and turning mark incidents. A start line slightly biased for a port start, due to a wind shift, also helped.

A comment was received about problems caused to following boats, when boats involved in a not giving way when overlapped prior to the RMYS A to action to avoid a collision.

We all know how congestion at fixed turning marks is difficult and dangerous, when gaff rigs with overhanging booms and sloops with a mix of rig heights converge, particularly for a gybe, if good seamanship is not used.

Still a great start to the series. No grumbles about the course. Some about handicaps though, which makes the handicapper happy.

I’ve attached the results of yesterdays race that include the BCH calculations plus the series points score and the points status for the MLIII ACH to BCH consistency award.

Regarding results publication, with the assistance of John Neve, Crew on “Renene”, we managed to have our race results published in this mornings “Sun”. The word “Classic” is removed from the results info provided. Sub editors strike again. A bit misleading but progress in the area of informing the general world we exist. Nothing in The Age.

Below is a link to some Race 1 images that Scott McDonald managed to snap from “Pastime II”

He’s always happy to provide the high resolution images.

Pictures

Next race run by RYCV on May 20.

Regards to all

Peter Costolloe

CYAA Handicapper

Results

Race 1 of our 2012 Winter Series has finally come about.

Attached are the Sailing Instructions for the race and the list of entries with their assigned handicaps.

Sundays race will be conducted for us by Hobsons Bay Yacht Club under the direction of Tony Dawson, HBYC Race Director and assisted by Bob Tanner, ex ORCV commodore. The HBYC committee vessel “Privateer” will be on station as indicated by the Race 1 Sailing Instructions.

Within our fleet for this series, which is particularly strong, in numbers and quality, we have two yachts, Corio Vertue H99, under the helm of Andy Indrans and Jan S/N 132, a Stella, under the helm of Greg Hynes, with us for the first time. Andy with Corio Vertue, has been a long time campaigner in Geelong passage races and Greg, with Jan, has been a long time crew on Tandanya. They are both ready to take the fleet on.

We have a welcome return of another Tumlaren, Vahine under the helm of Andrew Godwin. With Vahine back we have a 6 strong Tum fleet. And there’s more to come.  Tight racing in our Tum fleet.

Reviewing our list of entries for this series, and knowing the capabilities of each entrant, indications are we are in for one of the most exciting and hardest fought series, ever conducted by the Classics.

Racing with the Classics fleet is unique experience. No where else on the Bay is there a fleet of yachts, all with distinctive racing pedigrees, that range from ocean racing to round the sticks club racing, sailing hard, together, to hit the start line on the button. Say no more, it’s stirring stuff. We all know to make these mass starts of our fleet go off with no hiccups, absolutely no barging at the start.

So it’s on again. From that great moment when we see all the Classics from the top end of the bay converge for another series of tight racing between closely handicapped yachts while all sailing against the clock, through to, who will it be to win the day? Weather predictions look to be on our side.

Regards to all

Peter Costolloe

CYAA Handicapper

Sailing Instruction

Entries and Handicaps – Issue 3

Not sure if anyone in CYAA/CBA/Queenscliff would be interested, but here is an opportunity for women to helm in the BLISS regatta in May.

Details available on the RBYC website.

If there were enough interested people, it we could get a division opened it up for classics/coutas etc. We did this last year but I couldn’t get enough people interested……

What do you think? Interested?

Russ, you wearing a skirt won’t qualify ;)

Cheers,

Merella (Amanda C9)