Autumn 1998
Draycote Water
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a boat Rigging,
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Water

Bulletin

Things they don't tell you when you are nominated as fleet captain, number 27: Being fleet captain strikes you with a run of bad luck on the water, resulting in you not winning anything for ages. Going round marks the wrong way, capsizing more than usual, and having your mainsheet block explode are all symptoms of this affliction.

 

Apart from this (or possibly because of), the fleet racing has been rather close recently, with no single boat dominating. Miles Thomas has qualified for the European championships, and various ballers have done well in the newly reinstated pursuit races. These incidently are far more fun than the old handicap system and boast a whacky new finish line system which leaps out at you when you weren't expecting it and apparently permits you to finish a race whilst upside down. Thanks John.

 

The fleet championships are scheduled for the 13th & 20th of September, and the Marriot Mug sometime in October. We are also running the Miracle open meeting on the 3rd and 4th of October, an event which will take rather more club Fireballers to run than actually turned out to sail in our own open meeting. Anyone with an opinion on this should speak up now. Both the championship and The Mug are each now run over two Sundays with three races out of six to count. This is because (1) nobody sails on Saturday any more and, (2) it is still worth doing each event even if you can only make one day out of the two.

 

After some years of watching the fleet membership decline, it has been nice to see it suddenly increase recently. As I write, we are on the point of gaining three new boats and around six new members. Whilst on the subject, the committee recently discovered that people often don't buy Fireballs because they have never sailed one, and therefore don't know how good they are. They then get confused and buy something with scaffolding sticking out of the sides. In an attempt to avoid this situation, we are running a 'stop me and try one' scheme, in which real people get to sail Fireballs, usually at 3 PM on a Sunday. Don Robertson has kindly volunteered to organise the scheme, and I have volunteered  the rest of the fleet to help make it work. If you are a Fireballer, why not get a friend or acquaintance to come and have a go. If you aren't, but think you might like to be, now is your chance.

 

Mike Deane - Fireball 14226