Weymouth
Sailing
Club

Sunday evening after the start of the Fastnet drew a large crowd of Weymouth's sailors to Portland Bill. The spectacle of multihulls and huge yachts tearing past the Bill was enjoyed by everyone watching...
but events got much more interesting as the tide started to flood !

Cherbourg is a very different place when you have a bit of time to spend here - though an odd place for 'Pippa' to be mid-August!

It’s always disappointing when it’s the last evening race and the season only seems to have started a few weeks previously. To extend the evening racing, WSC Squib fleet has introduced a NEW early evening September series. This is a Thursday evening series held over 5 weeks. It starts on Thursday September 1st and the start time will be 1730 hrs.

You are probably aware that the Olympic test event is in full flow. Many of our Club members are helping out on the water with the myriad of tasks involved with a 21st Century event.
An essential part is the spectator experience. Tracking devices have been fitted to competitors boats and race committee boats to help us see what goes on during the racing. They're even fitted to the racing marks !

It's official - Fabien Delahaye (right) has won the first stage of the Figaro Solitaire, to Caen in Normandy, his home town and main sponsor.

Exchanging the excitement of Perros-Guirec for the quiet of a night at anchor in the Sept-Iles, I then left for Morlaix on Saturday, sailing in more or less fog most of the way, but arrived in sunshine.

Seventeen boats lined up for the Squib worlds in the 2012 Olympic sailing waters of Weymouth Bay.
Sixteen coaches, technical staff, managers and sailors from the New Zealand Olympic team helmed Weymouth Sailing Club members boats after their names were drawn out of the hat.

Club members were treated to a feast of New Zealand fayre as a thank you from Sailing NZL

After weeks of waiting, and as the Fastnet Race draws closer, Draig finally received her new mast. We are delighted. A Selden section was required as the nearest modern equivalent to her old Proctor rig. All new standing rigging & pretty much everything else. Sails will have to be re-cut to fit the new straighter section.

I arrived in Perros-Guirec to find this year's Figaro Solitaire preparations in full swing. French Olympic Met specialist David Lanier, who lives in Caen, introduced me to Fabien Delahaye, also from Caen, who must be one of the favourites for this year's series, after an exceptional opening to his 2011 solo season. I also shook hands with Gildas Morvan, a stalwart of the Figaro, and saw friends from the French Olympic preparations in Weymouth in another guise, preparing the Vendee entry.