07/08/2014

Barts Bash


On May 9th, 2013, Andrew 'Bart' Simpson tragically died in a training accident in San Fransisco Bay while preparing for the America's Cup competition.   There was shock across the sailing world at the loss of this truly great and selfless man and there were clearly many, many people whose lives had been touched by him in some way. A charity in memory of Andrew, the Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation, was set up by Sir Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy OBE and Andrew's wife Leah to honour Andrew's life and legacy to inspire the next generation through the use of sailing to help young people to develop the personal skills to succeed in life and improve access to jobs and careers within the maritime sector.
The inaugural Bart’s Bash is a sailing race that will be run by sailing clubs all around the world on behalf of the charity, the Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation. On Sunday 21 September 2014 each sailing club will sail an individual Bart’s Bash race at their location with certain set requirements to meet the criteria for a Guinness world record of the largest sailing race ever .  It is the major fundraising event for the Foundation which is asking people to raise money to support our charitable work.  It is for this cause that they are suggesting people should pay a £5 donation to take part.
In support of this, Clyde yacht clubs are combining to join up for one yachtie Barts Bash at Royal Gourock Yacht Club as their site combines a reasonably central venue with good shoreside exposure. Royal Northern, Cardwell Bay, Royal Gourock, Holy Loch, Fairlie, Largs and Serpent yacht clubs have all signed up to race at Gourock on the 21st September. The race promises to be a fairly straightforward tour of fixed marks in the Rosneath-Gourock-Holy Loch patch and it would be wonderful if a turnout coming close to Scottish Series Gourock starts of old could be achieved. Every yacht taking part in the race must have race insurance but it is possible that with sufficient interest it may be possible to run a Barts Bash Cruise around the course for non racers after the race proper has started. Cruise entries will not however be eligible for inclusion in the Guinness Record attempt. All participants must be a member of a yacht club but participating clubs will be able to offer temporary membership to non members who wish to take part and those clubs can be contacted through the BartsBash website. There is loads of further information on the BartsBash website and in something of the spirit of the Commonwealth Games it is a great opportunity to bring participation in a truly global event right down to the Gourock seafront.  

06/08/2014

Autumn Muster - From the Race Secretary

The Autumn Muster is on 6th-7th September 2014.  As in previous years this involves, for those who want to race, a race to Rothesay from Kip, ideally by way of the Cumbrae.  The harbourmaster in Rothesay is always welcoming and space has been reserved.  Seamus our Commodore has arranged dinner in the Victoria Hotel which if nothing else has the obvious advantage that no bus is required.  And of course there is the Pursuit Race back to Kip on the Sunday.
Hopefully the entry form will be emailed out in a newsletter soon but in the meantime the entry form and instructions can be downloaded here  .as a Word document. 
Furthermore there is an additional download available - this is an Excel results spreadsheet which was originally devised by Tom Hutchison. In the downloadable form it is ready populated with the usual Serpent suspects complete with handicaps and only requires the OOD to fill in the elapsed time to the finish for each boat. It is very easy to use for anyone familiar at the most basic level with Excel and if interested you are invited to download it and have a play. Excel calculates the results to decimals of minutes but since Serpent racing is so close (!) and everyone wants to know their time differences in actual seconds, the third last column has been added and that is where you enter the decimals of the minute - For example say the corrected time in minutes is 55.47. You would enter the .47 in the 3rd last column (headed 'decimal seconds') and in the second last column this will automatically appear as actual seconds. You then enter the final time in the last column by putting in the whole minutes from the corrected time column and inserting the whole seconds that you have just had calculated.  Much simpler to do than it is to describe but email me if you have any questions about it. I have found that the spreadsheet works fine on an ipad running Quickoffice and thus is usefully portable for on board use. My thanks to Tom for making it available.

It would be nice to get some more pictures on the website so please email your best cruising photos to serpentyachtclub@googlemail.com  and we can have a little gallery - perhaps with some commentary if you provide that too.  Ideally it is best if you don't email full camera resolution shots at 8Mb a pop or whatever. For those au fait with these things a .JPEG image (not RAW!) 1920x1080 pixels is more than plenty fine but this is by no means critical.