Three Rivers Race 2022.

[Lulu]

5 hours ago, BrundallNavy said:

Unfortunately the webcams don’t seem to want to play nicely today. 

havent had many issues when Ive had a look. Ive found watching Filibuster’s progress fascinating on the gpslive link

 

[Bernard]

Potter Web cam is working, still coming through.

[BrundallNavy]

Any results yet. 

[Matt]

Still a few boats finishing at 8am this morning when I went past.

[LizG]

Won by a Wayfarer Stuart Rix 2nd Ghost a Y&B

[TheQ]

My race notes.. plus added bits..

 

08:00, at club,

Unloaded, got rescue boat out, pulled boat to end of pier, (don't start outboard  in muddy shallows) put buoy out decided pier wasn’t long enough, so added 2 pontoons floating to bring the guard ship closer to the buoy.

 

09:15 all gear sat waiting at end of pier.., 

BA weed cutter turned up, did various dykes and  sides of the deep water channel, then took a couple   of turns round our mark...

Paddle board course going on in shallows near the Pleasure Boat Inn.

 

10:15, guardship turns up. After a bit of manoeuvering, mud weight positioning, we got set up. I took an old 23ft aluminium mast , pushed that into the mud and water, so about 5ft of height was lost with that, but the radio aerial was on an 8ft Batten, with overlap, to tie it on, that put the aerial back at 23ft up getting a much better signal. A couple of bits of string to the pontoons stopped it falling in the wind.

 

11:00, first start. 

 

12:30 first 6 boats at Ludham

 

Couple of Hickling lasers out, one of them keeps falling over.

Many boats now through Ludham, wayfarers seem to be doing well.

 

13:08 early boats that avoided Ludham now past Thurne mouth heading up here.

We’ve  just shut up all our north facing windows, that wind is getting chilly...

The soggy laser has given up..

 

13:40 it’s raining, not forecast, and we’ve blue skies..

 

A surprising amount of boats have gone for it and headed this way first , many more than last year...

 

14:15:28 first boat, punt 102 round Hickling buoy...

First retirement also a punt... Gentleman helm said punt is let's say, extremely experienced, it takes many years to gain that, sadly the wind strength was just too much for him.

 

Punt 49 rounded buoy, went a few yards.. then capsized, righted ok but lost one position..

Reports of a white boat ( Yare and Bure one Design) sinking, rescue boat sent, they hadn’t sunk but were soggy, eventually sorted, but they retired.

 

And enterprise capsized shortly after rounding the mark, they sorted themselves out, and were seen sailing soggily in the direction of Potter Heigham bailing furiously.

The enterprise retired at Potter.

 

Had a very mad two hours while the rescue boat was  attending the white boat...

 

17:00 48 boats seen so far many more than I expected, but the higher winds encouraged them this way.

The fastest boats are only taking 2.5 hours to get from the top of Hickling broad to the lower Bure buoy. That's 14 miles and includes taking the mast down twice..

 

18:00 first boat at Thurne mouth on its way back to Horning...

 

18:15 paramedic called to Acle bridge, injured hand,

 

19:00ish lead boat past Ant mouth on the way back to Horning

Large amounts of boats heading up from Acle many have already done the Hickling leg.

 

20:15 only 7 boats not seen at Acle and just seven between there and the lower Bure buoy. Here at Hickling we still await 32 boats.

 

About 21:00 small shower of rain,

We await 23 boats Acle awaits 2 boats

 

22:00 we await 16 boats..

 

23:00 a sailfish has lost its mast just up river of Martham, we await 9 boats.

It’s getting cold out there occasional short showers of rain.

 

00:20, all boats left have been to the lower Bure buoy,

 

We still await, 5 boats.

 

00:35 down to awaiting 3 boats of which 2 are between here and Martham, the third is between Acle and Thurne proceeding in what was called a” stately fashion.”.

 

05:10 we await one boat.... It’s raining again...

19 boats have RTD so far, 5 DNS

 

06:19 A search party has set out for .. a search party has found the missing boat, they are being advised they have no chance of finishing would they like to retire...

 

I'd gone to get the Landrover, from car park to quay heading, but when I returned, the OOD, had declared the errant boat OOT.

 

Time to pack away, radio aerial down first, the mast really didn't want to come out of the mud. At this time it started drizzling...

Once the guardship had gone I could get the pontoons moved back, a bit more difficult against the wind..

I'd just put the rescue boat away when the Hickling OOD turned up for their racing today.. to get a rescue boat out....

Then to Horning Sailing Club for breakfast, ( served to me by Liz ) unload the gear, boats were still finishing when I left at around 09:30..

 

As I suspected the provisional results show 3 wayfarers in the top half dozen Boats. The fastest passage trophy to a punt and it can't be far off a record time.

[TheQ]

The provisional results

https://horning-sailing.club/racing-results/?fbclid=IwAR1UmriqJcubvwMudlp-GilMynbD8wwc3LRmFSwyMcy-j_5IooYGERL3v2I

[LizG]

Thanks Q for finding them I knew they were in the public domain!

[LizG]

Following on from Q's here's my tales from the Galley!

First an early morning visit on Saturday to the club followed by watching the race from the garden (as you do!!!) I was joined by Sue Hines who takes amazing photos so only took a few on my phone.

Late afternoon I go down to the club to get the latest news! It was obvious this was a fast race and by 7 in the morning the Galley might be quiet so I offered to stay all night. From last year I knew that little things helped speed things up so I cut up all the sausages so that wouldn't need doing and separated 2 giant packs of bacon. The first boat was home at 19:50 and we opened the galley well ahead of the normal time. It was quite obvious that the majority of early finishers first port of call was the pub and then home with the plan they return in the morning when breakfast would be more appealing!

So when the 22:00 shift arrived and started getting the breakfasts ready for the next round of finishers I could see the 07:00 shift could be equally busy, I went home to get some sleep.

I awoke to hear cars sloshing through puddles along Lower Street. It had rained! Apparently initially it was manic but between 01:00 and 06:30 it had been quiet!

The 07:00 shift started getting more sausages and bacon cooked but we had no idea what to come!!! The word busy was no exaggeration!  Q will testify. When I arrived in the morning the piles of loaves of bread  was high. When we finished there was just 3 left!!! All the sausages went, the beans ran out and I have no idea how many breakfasts the amazing crew prepared!!! 

I got home just after 13:00 and apart from looking online on my phone I have done very little. Home tomorrow!

It was a hard but very good race!

Liz

 

 

 

 

 

[maysailor]

Unfortunately our race finished prematurely when tree jumped out and hit us!

We were going fairly well up to that point having done both legs and making it slowly through Potter where the tide was ebbing very strongly

 

[LizG]

Enjoy

 

[Vaughan]

Thank you very much for sharing that, Liz.

I especially liked the bows - on shot of river cruiser No 177 Breeze, at 1 min 57.  I have had that long bowsprit following me up and down the Bure and the Yare on more than one occasion, about 3 ft off the transom and trying to get through to windward!  A great boat to race against.

I am afraid to say that a lot of those young people being interviewed are now the grandchildren of those people I used to race with.  I didn't know the eventual race winner but I remember he was known as rather a "wizz-kid" in dinghies back in the 70's.  I had to laugh though, when he was interviewed at the end, wearing a protest flag!  No tying a white handkerchief to the rigging for him - he had a purpose-made flag "B" ready to attach to the shrouds!

You have to be a real competitive helmsman to protest in that race.  One wonders what he was wasting the race committee's time protesting against?  Another competitor?  The race committee themselves?  Or perhaps the builders of Potter Heigham Bridge?

[batrabill]

River sailors competitive??? Never. 

[TheQ]

Ah Liz beat me to it.