PYC FF Fleet August Newsletter
Early in the C18th, people of the Jacobite persuasion were singing lustily for a southerly wind to bring back to them their king over the water. For us Sassenachs in the C21st, our Poole Week version of the  battle of Culloden took place in the ‘Top Triangle’, where we found ourselves in the midst of a struggle for supremacy between winds of a southerly persuasion. On several days the wind from the south-west quadrant seemed to have the upper hand, but occasionally, a sneaky south-easterly came in to spoil the party.
As Jean Brodie would have expected, the cream of our fleet did rise to the top, despite these trying conditions. One of our courses, for example, ended up being a single leg to Glovers. On that leg, however, we, in 3974, enjoyed the prospect of sailing close-hauled, followed by close reaching, and finally approaching the finish on the run with a full-bellied spinnaker! No need for the Race Officer to go to all that bother of setting quadrilaterals.  At the end of the week, Huw and Bob, along with Trefor and Richard proved themselves to be the crème de la crème. It was a closely fought contest, which wasn’t decided until late on Friday, some time after sailing had finished, with the former of these two teams wearing the crown of Poole Week winners for 2024.
Apart from the club’s flagship event, fleet racing in August has been well supported, as you can see from the figures in the table below:

Turn out figures for Wednesday and Saturday racing in August
Wednesday	07/08	21/08	Average
Nos.	20	16	18
Saturday	03/08	10/08	17/08	Average
Nos	20	17	13	17

 
The sharp-eyed amongst you will have spotted that there is a gap in the Wednesday racing schedule. What happened on the 14^th I hear you ask? The short answer is nothing! However, if you wish to find out exactly how painful that nothing was, you can read my report on our web-site along with those written by Phil Cotton and Patrick Keats for the 7^th and 21^st respectively. I can report though, that we had two winners in August, Pete with Jo on the 7^th and Crispin with Steve on the 21^st: who could have foreseen that?! Chris and Nadia managed to upset the Harbour Master, who must have been having a very bad day, because by all accounts they did very little wrong, but still had to be disqualified at the request of HM. Still, that did give Phil the chance to show us that his prowess with the pen was equal to that with the tiller.
Patrick’s otherwise excellent report did rather gloss over an incident that will stay with me for a while. Richard Ledger’s videoing captures the scene perfectly. Suffice it to say that a flying Fifteen doesn’t go very fast when it is lying on its side! In the moment, I felt I clambered up to the windward side quite smartly but when I watched the video back, I could see, that in reality, I ascended with all the speed of a geriatric sloth!
Two things still to mention. Firstly, it was good to see 3901 back on the water after a little break. The other, probably only of interest to the nerdy (like me) was that Roberta and John achieved the same position in both races (6^th) – the only people to do that, except for those who had two DNCs (shame on you!).
Finally, for Wednesdays in August, the winners of Sailor of the Month, with a score of twenty boats defeated, are Paul Tasker and Michael Clapp.
Saturdays in August provided us with one more race than Wednesdays but still only two winners. Jo and Pete filled their boots with two wins and then took a rest missing the third race! They were joined by Peter Verver and Andrew. You might think that was a surprise given their positions in the two other races (14^th & 12^th), but I couldn’t possibly comment – I refer you to Matthew chapter 20, verse 16 for elucidation (not quite literally though)! Other notable performances were Steve and Lisa’s 2^nd place and that in one race, Luke and Sam cemented their recent improvement by having a better result than 5 other boats: their largest haul of scalps so far! I must also pay homage to Ian and Mike, who discarded a 6^th in the three races sailed, the smallest discard by a mile.
Our three recruits to the journalistic profession (pressganged?), all produced excellent reports, which you can find on the web-site. Chris Gorringe was impressed by the masterclass put on by Jo and Pete in the race he wrote about. On his scale of tactical genius to victim of fate, we, like many others oscillated wildly from one to the other. There are two boats on the water sometimes crewed by people whose surname sounds the same, and I must congratulate Chris on his success at correctly spelling the two different sets (Keats and Keates). I’m not sure if Oscar Wilde ever thought of writing this sequel to his play, but I am convinced that Patrick and William are now aware of the importance of tallying!
Our second scribe of August’s Saturdays was Richard Whitworth, who led half the fleet astray on the Round the Islands race. This nearly caused a Los Vegas style divorce on our boat as I insisted if Richard can sail across there, then so can we. The words were hardly out of my mouth, when the rudder began to make sounds of distress! We, like a few others, had several heart stopping moments as we grounded repeatedly on our way back to deeper water. However, as Richard concluded, it was a cracking race.
Andy Currell is a nice bloke so you can bet your life that the conversations he describes in his report weren’t as genteel as his rendition of them! His was a masterclass of a different sort, managing to turn a position of being the penultimate boat at the first mark to attaining the journalist’s position at the finish, whilst skilfully negotiating the difficulties of ‘tillergate’ on the way, but apparently, it was all down to Simon’s advice!
There only remains to inform you which team won the award of sailor of the month for Saturdays in August: it was Nadia and Chris, crossing the finish line in front of a total of 37 boats.
Our Fleet Captain will soon be awarding August’s ‘Reporter of the Month’ with another of our unique writing implements!
Well, that’s it for August. Let’s hope that our sailing in September is better than the Romans could count. They thought September was the 7^th month when they named it! (to be fair on them, there were only ten months in their year, but that spoils the joke!).
JK