Cruiser Class Notes. We just got back from the final cruiser event of the season at the Folly Inn. The weather has turned rather autumnal and the forecast strong winds and rain kept the attendance down to four boats. This season we completed a full programme of races and rallies by re-scheduling two events from June to October and re-routing the round the island rally via the Solent. But mustn’t grumble; the weather for much of the summer has been excellent. The pictures were taken on our weekend cruise to Chichester in June for example. Hillhead boats have ranged far and wide this year. Sue and I have been down the West coast of the Cotentin peninsula to Iles Chausey, Trevor Andrews and Paul Drew have both taken their boats to the Channel Islands, Matthew West has been up-channel to Ramsgate for a week’s racing, and Paul Benstead has been the other way down-channel to Cornwall. Our visitors from Fareham’s twin town of Vannes in South Brittany brought an impressive fleet of about 18 boats and 60 people to the Solent in July and along with Warsash, Fareham, and Portchester sailing clubs we tried to entertain them as royally as they did us in Vannes in 2011. They had fair winds for the return journey and left us with a warm and genuine invitation to visit Vannes in 2015. As far as I know only two boats form HHSC have visited Vannes on a twinning rally. I will be reminding you nearer the time and trying my hardest to drum up a Hill Head fleet for the next one. There have been a few changes in our fleet this year. Howard Piper came to the round the island rally in his recently-acquired Dawn 38 “Icarus”. Paul Drew has been getting to know his Benetau 30 “Violet Flame”. And at the moment Jonathon Davies and Tony Provis are both in the process of upgrading from Newbridge Navigators to Westerley Warwicks. I’m sure this will shake up the racing results next year. I am also considering further tweaks to the handicap regime over the winter which always leads to a certain amount of animated discussion around the bar. We will soon be laying up the boats for the winter and I will be preparing the fixture list for next season. Let me know if you have any ideas for different events. I am thinking about organising a HHSC rally to Cherbourg next summer. We have done this a few times in the past and there are now at least half a dozen boats in the fleet which are big enough to tackle the crossing with ease and several of the Haven boats have been across in the past so we should be able to muster a decent group. All dependent on the weather of course.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 09:01:25 +0000
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