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CentreBoard

November 2004

The Newsletter of Spinnaker Club, Ringwood

www.spinnakerclub.co.uk

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Editor’s comments

Choice.
We are all free to choose how we use and enjoy Spinnaker Lake. The Club Survey highlights the broad range of members’ interests. The focus naturally tends to fall on racing, for it represents the driving force of our Club. Sailors also have a fair choice among competitive dinghy classes. Yet to spend four hard years aiming for Olympic participation, only to be told that next time you’ll have to sail another dinghy, does, on the face of it, seem to be suppressing such choice. So success breeds limitation. In 2004 Spinnaker sailors again excelled in disciplines ranging from ocean racing through to windsurfing. The spirit of our Club surely lies in spurring each other to greater efforts. To build on success. To deal with setbacks. I hope that with its diversity of topics this publication reflects in some small measure the choices that members have made in how they represent sailing as the ultimate recreational sport. Ed.

Laura plans for Beijing

Laura Baldwin, Spinnaker Club member and Olympic sailor gives CentreBoard a glimpse of a typical month in her hectic life.

In that month ISAF was preparing for a conference in Denmark to decide on whether the Europe Dinghy is to remain the Women’s Single-handed Olympic Class.

In CentreBoard read about Laura’s concerns for this successful dinghy’s future, about the huge amount of constant effort and preparation demanded by a modern Olympic campaign. Along the way she has met The Queen and Tony Blair.

Stop press Laura news: “I just won the RYA/Holt Olympic Classes National Ranking Regatta in Rutland. This event was also the Europe Class Inland Championships. I won 4 races and discarded a 2nd. There were 20 boats and I had a 9 point lead from Andrea Brewster in 2nd and 10 points from Lizzie Vickers in 3rd.”

RYA Youth Team Racing Grafham

No doubt others will write about Spinnaker's excellent performance at this event - Youth team was 2nd, beaten in the final by a very impressive Musto 29er team. Juniors were 3rd.

Canford came 12th overall, out of 20 teams. We were very pleased with this, having previously only managed last! We won a number of close races, and at an early stage of the competition were actually lying first! That was before we were fairly comfortably beaten by Spinnaker.
But we very much enjoyed the event, and hope to revenge our defeat by Spinnaker in the summer at the Southern Region event.
Stephen Wilkinson, Canford School

Instructor/Bosun

Since our last newsletter we have been actively looking for a replacement for Alan Copestake who has now left our shores to put his feet up in France.
A panel of four of us from the main Committee have interviewed many well-qualified applicants and by the time this newsletter reaches you we should have chosen our new Senior Sailing Instructor and Bosun.
Since Alan Copestake left, the Club is very grateful to both John Clarke and John Noble for taking on the duties previously carried out by Alan. Without their friendly help in ensuring that the safety boats and club racing boats are up together we would have difficulty in maintaining the constant requirements to run our racing and training events. A big thank you to both of you in filling this gap, whilst we appoint, and get on board our new Bosun. Brian Watkins

Laser sailor sets pace at lively Spinnaker Dinner Dance enjoyed by around 80 Club members at Sandy Balls on 19 November.