If Shakespeare had been a member of our fleet, he might have penned the following; “Some fifteneers are born to occupy third place, some aspire to achieve third place, and others have that position thrust upon them!” I’ll leave it to you to decide, if you’re kind enough to read on, into which category our various report writers fall.
Some of us appear more frequently than others in the report writing section of the web-site. David and Frances will forgive me, I hope, when I write that their names haven’t featured as report writers all that often. The fact that they have contributed twice in the month is testament to their recent good form and speed. They only narrowly missed out on 2^nd or 1^st places after long fought out battles with some of our big hitters!

Another name that appeared twice in this month (also quite regularly in other months) is Crispin, sailing without Steve, his normal crew, who is convalescing after a serious medical incident. With impressive diplomacy, he described what was a fairly processional race. However, both Richard Whitworth and Phil Cotton and their respective crews showed impressive speed, taking a very low route to WH2 from Rebbecks – it’s probably sour grapes on my part when I report that they were both helped at the end of the leg by a fortuitous left shift. Pete and Jo sailed serenely for most of the day deservedly winning the ‘Big Fleet Day’ trophy, to become its second winner (Crispin was first). Crispin also had the tricky job of writing positively about another and very frustrating race, correctly described by him as ‘exaggerated snakes and ladders’.

Kim kept true to her poetic leanings and gave us a wonderful limerick to describe a very successful mini-series which took place in the unlikely setting of South Deep. We all enjoyed (really?) four very hectic races in which spinnakers went up and down more frequently than a bride’s nightie! As Kim pointed out there was lively competition with several sailors enjoying top spot in at least one of the races. However, consistency won the day and Richard W with Ben S ended at the top of the pile securing the RMYC trophy. They also managed to win the race home to cement their superiority over the rest of us! A lasting memory of the day (because I was a close witness to it) was watching Geof attempt to board the committee boat (a rib) with his Flying Fifteen. I think the biblical term for what it looked like is ‘making the beast with two backs’!

We’ve had 9 races in July, four on Saturdays and five on Wednesdays. We had five separate winners. 4052, 4114 and 4115 each enjoyed a single victory, but 3922 and 3793 topped the table with 3 victories each.  Wednesday racing was dominated by these two. Both days had an average turn-out of 17 boats which most clubs would be very happy with, but we’ve only broken into the twenties twice (several teams have had manning problems). The sailors of the month winners were as follows: Saturdays – 4114 Richard Whitworth et al (Richard will have to work out where the second beer goes); Wednesdays - 3922 which is formally the Flying Fifteen Fireball Syndicate (probably Ian and Mike).

As I near the end of this report, it would be remiss of me not mention the other successful sailors in our fleet: those who’ve earned the Rasputin Cup! It’s always satisfying to see our best sailors enjoying this sort of limelight. Richard Whitworth has yet another victory to chalk up, this time because of a spinnaker foul -up. Richard, in his acceptance speech mounted what sounded like a reasonable defence, but he quickly realised that the jury were deaf to his evidence and accepted his fate with good grace. Similarly, Patrick showed a brave face to the public when justice finally caught up with him and he accepted his reward for launching irregularities which necessitated his leaving of the boat to refloat it. He was equally generous in promising to make sure that his crew, Aly, should take her share in this accolade! The final winner of the Rasputin, this month, is Geof, whose exploits were sufficiently deviant to deserve the more detailed description given previously.

Off the water, we had a magnificent after race evening of paella and conversation ( not to mention various libations)- Sara isn’t quite a deity, but she and her helpers produced an evening that was ‘out of this world’ in quality!

I began this newsletter with a remark about the sailors who had found themselves in the ‘scribe position’. It seems fitting then to end it with the name of the reporter of the month for July: Patrick Keats who broke new ground by feeding his report into an AI package that generated a fascinating (scary?) interview that is well worth listening to if you haven’t done so already.

Well, if you do aspire to finishing third in our races, you’ve missed your chance for July, but never fear, you’ve got Poole Week (24^th-29^th) to look forward to, and in other waters there’s the F15 Nationals and Worlds, should either of those float your boat. 

JK