| 28 Feb |
Today, lured possibly by sneaky offer of coffee and biscuits from Viv, our faultless assistant secretary, a bunch of members assisted with the Club spring mailing. This involved labelling and filling over 1000 envelopes each with 16 inserts plus the club handbook.
The mailing to local residents was spread amongst a number of the volunteers for delivery by hand. This is an interesting and sometimes frustrating exercise trying to find houses by name only when many of the names on gateways are weathered or obscured by foliage. Then, having found the houses, they have to be approached by lengthy driveways where it always seems to be raining. Finally there is the problem of the letterboxes most of which are too small and often situated at the foot of the door.
So this member, who has fallen victim to the same smooth approach for many years, advises you to watch for the sting in the tail when Club staff or Committee members offer coffee and biscuits.
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| 26 Feb |
Sadly, Roly Boissevain died on Wednesday 21st February 2007. He was at home with his family.
Roly has been sailing in Chichester Harbour since he was 20 years old. 56 years in all! He was a member of ISC since 1979 and BSC since the1950s. Roly campaigned two 12ft Nationals in the 1960s, Chuckle and Bubbles. He had a succession of Swallows, Pintail and Robin, before joining the Sunbeam fleet in 1994, with a share in Melody V36, with John Ford. Roly also owned a Folkboat, Excalibur a Van der Stadt design, and finally his beloved Snow Bunting, a Sweden 38, which he bought in 1986.
He took Snow Bunting across the Atlantic twice, once on the ARC in 1986, completing the trip in a just 14 days. He raced Snow Bunting in two Antigua Weeks and cruised the Caribbean with his wife, Trish and many friends. They went as far south as Venezuela and north to Maine, before returning to the Mediterranean.
Roly loved sailing from the moment he stepped onto a Norfolk Broads Punt at the age of 12. He overcame paralysis at 22 (as a result of encephalitis) to spend much of his life either on or near the water. He built Waders, on the opposite side of the creek to the ISC in 1989 and became an active member of Bosham Parish Council and Vice President of BSC.
Tragically, Roly was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in February 2006 – the same disease which took Kirk Webster, another Sunbeamer, in October last year. The disease took its toll but Roly maintained his great sense of humour throughout.
A real character with a wicked sense of humour, Roly always left things to the last minute usually eating his lunch or breakfast on his way to the start!
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| 22 Feb |
RS200 GUL WINTER CHAMPIONSHIPS, NORTHAMPTON (click on the image to make it larger)
 Team Ronnie stormed to victory......in the bronze fleet. Richard Neall & Sara Terry in Rocket Ronnie pulled back a 14 point deficit with one race to go to clinch the Bronze division in the Gul sponsored RS200 Winter Championships in Northampton last weekend. A fairly average performance on the Saturday was forgotten and in the medium to light conditions the afterburners were attached for the Sunday racing. Unfortunately, infringements on the start line in race one left us doing 720 turns as the gun went, but we pulled through the 44 boat fleet to finish 20th. Race two we tried to find space at the first leeward mark while lying 12th which ended up with yet more turns for us and a miffed helm after our best start of the regatta. However, we did really rather well to get back to 14th. After a lunch break, back on the water for what turned out to be a storming race in very light airs(!), clean off the start, 3rd at the top mark and finishing 6th.....within a whisker of an awesome 2nd, but for our National Champion Roger Gilbert sneaking his spinnaker pole inside us at the last mark to the finish. We finished a respectable 18th overall. Thanks to Northampton SC for hosting a superbly run event.
See the full event write up at http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=24920 |
