Drafty Duties

Every fleet has an obligation to provide some helping hands on the Committee Boat at various specifiied dates throughout the sailing season and Saturday 17th August was one of the PY days. Paul Keane and David Dwyer stepped up and spent a day onboard.

The Freebird Committee Boat is amazingly well organised and it is very interesting and good fun to watch the racing from a different angle. Jobs we're allocated after docking out, tying up ropes and hauling fenders inboard. Paul was put on flags. David was on the hooter. Brian Matthews was PRO with Barbara calling the time and Noelle keeping records.

On 3 minute rolling starts there are a lot of flags going up and down in conjunction with the various sound signals. Luckily there is a laminated sheet showing what happens each minute and once the sequences start it's fairly easy to just keep the flags rolling. In addition to the start sequences there are interruptions like OCS boats which must be dealt with.

It was a fairly windy day and with the Optimists taking up the Western Part of the bay for their Nationals PRO Brian Matthews decided to set a course in Scotsmans Bay. A call was made to station a RIB at the harbour mouth which could convey the change of course area to any boats that looked like they were heading to Seapoint.

A windward/leeward course was opted for and shortly after the first start sequence started we realised the Freebird was drifting. 2 hooters from Dave, Paul raised the AP and Brian quickly restarted the engines and lifted the anchor (all done remotely from the cockpit) and then motored back onto station. Probably less than five minutes lost before we restarted the sequence.

After the second round a line squall could be seen coming down the course so a decision was made to shorten the courses and get the boats finished. In the video below Matthew O'Dowd from the RSG is seen tearing down the course in his laser, it gives an idea of the wind on the day. Shortly after this a friend of Matthew's lost his rig in another Laser. At this point N over A was raised and all of the fleets were sent in.



Next year the PY Fleet will be trialling a Committee Boat duty rota whereby everyone in the fleet will at some point have to share in our collective responsibility to provide help.

See you all on Tuesday.