webpage hosted by
Transouth Translators Ltd

CentreBoard

August 2004

The Newsletter of Spinnaker Club, Ringwood

www.spinnakerclub.co.uk

click here
for previous
issues

Alan Copestake

There can’t be many people at the Club who don’t know who Alan is. Perhaps what they don’t realise is how many different roles he plays at the Club.

Since retiring from his career as an expert on grass and laying lawns in the last 5 years he has become an increasingly ubiquitous figure at the Club helping it to run smoothly and efficiently.

As well as being Chief Instructor at the Club he is also Boatswain and chief training officer. He is also responsible for the maintenance of the Team Racing fleets as well as transporting these fleets all over the country. As well as this he gives a lot of time to maintaining the boats of several affiliated organisations. In what time he has left he helps with Sandleheath Sea Scouts and does private repair work on many members’ boats.

Unfortunately for the Club this paragon of marine industry has decided to move to France in the late autumn.

The Main Committee has been applying its collective wisdom to the difficult matter of replacing him. We are exploring lots of avenues but if you want his job or have ideas of your own please speak to a member of the Main Committee.

We are all going to miss Alan and all that he does for the Club, but we all wish Alan and Pauline well for their new life in France. Hywel Morris

New Members BBQ

The Club has so far sent over 46 invitations to the free New Members BBQ on 4 September.

Of course other Club members are also welcome to this BBQ. They would have to pay £5.00 per adult and £3.00 per child but they MUST advise me if they wish to attend by 30 August giving number of adults and ages of children attending so that the catering can be organised.

The seconds hand

You may have noticed that the clock in the clubhouse and the clock in the race hut are both "Radio" clocks.

You cannot set the hands, but you can "reset" by removing the battery and them putting it back. In theory (and usually in practice) the clock will then perform a ritual, ending up with correct time to the split second. There are also two digital radio clocks in the race officer equipment box.

These clocks keep accurate time we are told, but after a while, they sometimes they wander off accurate, so they need watching and resetting from time to time.

Assuming they are correct, for those of us lucky enough to have a wristwatch with a sweep second hand that actually points to the marks on the dial (and not halfway between like most of them) just set the watch to the radio, telly or speaking clock, and you have the start sequence timing with no more ado.

I have had endless fun (?) getting these clocks going. I have found one model of clock, which seems to be reasonably reliable, and then I have to take the front off, and re-position the hands to align with the blobs on the dial. At the same time I have managed to bend the hands so that the tip of each hand is reasonably close to the dial, as this minimises the parallax effect.

Hopefully, start timing will be easier, but please keep an eye on these clocks, as now and again they seem to be a few seconds out. They rely on radio reception to tell the time, and interference such as Sunspots can introduce errors.

Paul Mathews

Quadrangle Trophy

Attention all single-handers! Don’t forget the Quadrangle Trophy.

Mudeford SC is hosting this annual event specifically for single-handed boats on 4 September 2004.

Racing in Christchurch Harbour.