Flying 15 News

Schedule dates for sail plan trials

29th July to 9th August - Loch Lomand
14th August to 23rd - Draycote then taken to Europeans
29th August to September 10th September - Northampton
At Southerns at Weymouth
11th - 20th September - Chew Valley
25th September to 4th October - Llangorse
9th October to 28th October - Hayling Island
30th October taken to the fleet captains meeting Venue to be advised
30th October to 22nd November - Queen Mary
November either South Carney, Cowes, TBC by the clubs
December either South Carney, Derwent Water, TBC by the clubs
Month of January - Grafham Sailing Club
Month February - Datchet Sailing Club

To express an interest please contact secretary@flying15.org.uk, each club will be sent a valuation form. See the Development section on the website for more information on this subject.

2012 Europeans on Lake Garda

The 2012 European Championship is to be held at Fraglia vela Riva on Lake Garda from 27 – 31 August. See event website for more details of the Sailing Club and links for other information. There is plenty of time to plan for the event and even add a holiday in a most beautiful area!

Commiserations to our Belguim Colleagues

Unfortunately Charles Bertels (who usually sailed with Veronique) died last Thursday. Charles was such a character and a lovely man - the Belgian open meeting won't be the same without him!
(words from a e-mail from Brenda Lee).

And deepest condolences to his family and friends from all in the British fleet.

British sailors dominated the racing in 2011

Steve Goacher and Phil Evans from Royal Windermere Yacht Club were 1st out of the 85 boats competing for the National Championship combined with International Week sailed under the burgee of Hayling Island Sailing Club and Roger Palmer as Principal Race Officer. The large surf gave mixed and extremely challenging conditions for both the race team and the competitors with the large rollers in the bay making for some excellent surfing conditions in the flying 15. Flights were trialled in readiness for the worlds and were not well received by all. I had great reports back from Chris and Tracey Harris buddy for going that extra mile.

On the lay day I was proud and sad to be party to bid Tony Lee farewell at Tynemouth, other members Roy Windebank, Fran Bayliss, Ian Stowe and Graham Robinson from NZ joined me on the journey. Chris Hough's eulogy of Tony was animated and really comforting and touched our hearts, it brought Tony once again to the room, he will be sadly missed. My thoughts and hugs to Brenda. She is off to Falmouth week with the sailing friends, I hope the weather is kind to you all.

The World Champion Title has returned to the British team. It is absolutely fantastic, a great achievement and congratulations to Graham Vails and Chris Turner from Derwent Water Sailing Club winning this the 18th World Championship Title. Some 98 boats competed over 7 days, with the Principal International Race Officer Roger Palmer running a full series of 2 lots of flights - a total of 20 races. The 17 Classic and Silver boats sailed on a separate course organised by Paul Maxfield the national race officer and completed 7 races over 7 days. Congratulations to Bob Salmond and Robert Till from Holy Loch SC for winning the Classic trophy and Malcolm and Alex Hall from Burton Sailing club winning the Silvers Title. Hat’s off to Roger Palmer PRO and his teams.

Both the nationals and the worlds was tough sailing, the wind came principally off the Hayling shore with an occasional glimpse of Hayling sea breezes on a few sunny days, Hayling at its finest. Our Worlds win, plus runners up Mike and Gemma McIntyre from home waters and Andy McKee and Richard Jones from Dovestone Sailing Club with only 3 points between second and third place respectively, went into the last day with all to play for. All three teams have actively been involved in the national fleet for the last couple of years and worthy winners.

For me the past 12 months have flown by, travelling around the country to sail at these far and remote places and meeting lots of members has been fun. Camping for the first time in 20 years at Grafham, I must admit the Worlds have dominated my diary leading up to the regatta, but the home fleets thoughts and ideas haven’t been far away.

I have just returned from the Flying Fifteen International Council with Greg focusing on the marketing plan set out 2008, and seperately that FFI wish to recognise, past and current world champions by allowing them to have a different colour logo on their sail - this is to be confirmed very soon. Fortunately Richard Jones our new BIFFA publicity officer is currently working on putting the BIFFA marketing on the right track.

FFI as yet have no succession planning in place. The commodore stood down for a couple of days and was re-elected by the other council members for the next term. Graham Roberson from Napier, New Zealand looks the most likely candidate to take over at Hong Kong in 2013 however until then he has his hands full with the reconstruction of Christchurch. Greg is keen to keep the energy going with the development sail and to drive it forward. BIFFA has taken the sail by running trails over the past couple of years, passed the sails around the different clubs over the past year and feedback all this information with draft sailplan dimensions with the support of Charles Apthorp, the late Tony Lee, Dave McKee, and many other individuals including the sail makers.

The AGM was short and sweet but with a few pressing areas. The national championship format needs to allow all the boats to start on the same line, and not have flights. With the lower turn out of Classic and Silver it is not cost effective to run separate starts. An inland event is also being tried this year for Classic and Silvers. The intention is to run separate championships for Classics and Silver at Llangorse 2012 following on from a test event this year on 24th & 25th September. We are not trying to split the fleet but looking at getting more boats travelling to a championship. Other ideas are welcome.

The qualifying series now needs to change shape after last year and will be prepared on a ranking table which will run annually and shall be used if necessary for future world champion places, this league table will be named in memory of Tony Lee’s Annual Ranking Table and will consist of all the championship event events plus one other event nominated by the championship committee. Gill Browning has been organising some excellent venues for the next two years including Lake Garda. Gill has identified venues that work and for the flying fifteen and noted we have a very few northern venues open for fifteen sailing. It is suggested we look at the clubs that other keel boats sail at and see if there are any other possibilities. Gill is doing a sterling job and I am confident she will send us to some great venues in coming years. I am pleased that Geoff Bayliss is onboard in a supporting role on the technical side for BIFFA with his depth of knowledge, a past president and on the ISAF representative.

I have always first to say that sailing a flying fifteen and the association is about getting boats on the water, may it be club sailing, training or meeting up at one the series of open meetings or national regatta to bring owners together to share ideas and be jolly and fun. On that note I would like to run a fun quiz night (anyone who has been to one of my quiz’s before will know it is different and definitely fun), this will be planned for the end October/ early November in the west side of London hope we will have lots of teams entered. Details will be on the website very soon. The money raised from that event will go towards club training or club loan boats equipment.

It is also Simon Kneller suggestion to encourage new comers to our fleet by offering a 50% reduction at the Nationals to the first 5 boats entered who have not sailed in national championships before and are under the age of 35 years.

Happy sailing, off to Cowes this weekend, looking forward to hearing from you.

Sue Bannister President of BIFFA

Flying Fifteens return to the Solway

After a period of some years Solway Yacht Club at Kippford once again has a keen and active Flying Fifteen fleet. The Solway is a great place to sail and the annual Kippford Week is a real tester when it blows – we also get some very keen visitors, who more often than not get the silverware!

The Solway Yacht club is over a hundred years old and its association with the Flying fifteen goes back many years – we have a member who can remember Uffa Fox bringing Cowslip on the roof of his Humber car (keel in the boot).

Sailing is in the tidal River Urr/Solway estuary, providing inshore and offshore courses. Launching facilities are via a concrete ramp with adequate floating pontoon facilities

Kippford Week this year is from Monday 1st August to Friday 5th August inclusive. There is also Kippford Regatta, which is held on the Sunday 31st July immediately preceding Kippford Week. This serves as a good practice for those who intend to sail during the following week.

The racing tends to last around 2 hours plus time to sail down to the start and back up the river. This fits in with being able to sail around two hours either side of high tide.

There is a full programme of social events through the sailing week with adequate time to recover in the Club bar or nearby hostelries.

More details are available at the Club website, thesyc.com

Honorary member Bernard Fisher will be missed

Greg Wells has kindly paid this tribute.

I crewed for him in 1979! He had many 15's his most successful ones were 1700 Invicta and 2200 Encore. Bernard was at his happiest when it was windy and was virtually unbeatable. He basically pulled everything in hard and went like a rocket. He particularly loved a 3 sail reach and Encore was a downwind flyer. In the 70's and 80's it was not unusual to hear Bernard's dulcet tones shouting across the water as he came whizzing past on the reaches ably crewed by June Strong. He was a real character and a tremendous asset to the class. I will always remember him saying to me on a sunny light wind morning "Your sort of slithering weather today Wells". He will be sadly missed down here but the ace fifteen fleet in the sky will be delighted to welcome him.

Bernard was BIFFA Chief Measurer up to the 1980's.

Bernard Fisher passed away peacefully on 13th February 2011, a year to the day after losing his beloved wife Anne.

Funeral Friday 25th February 2011 at 3pm, St Peter’s Church, Northney, Hayling Island, Hants. No flowers please but donations to RNLI via Grady’s funeral directors 02392 463828

Chew's increasing fleet and a successful season

This has been a good season with the addition of four boats to the fleet in the last twelve months. Only one boat has not been on the water in that time.

Fleet racing takes place on Sundays throughout the year in the morning and afternoon with a pleasant lunch in between. The regular turnout has increased from three or four boats to six or seven and racing is extremely competitive. Although there are now three of the latest Ovington marque at the Club the other boats are equally competitive: the one pointed the best way usually wins.

On Sundays in the summer the morning race is a handicap race and the series this year was won by a fifteen with another (3361) third.

Wednesday evening is the busiest time in the summer with a fast handicap race in which the fifteens compete, usually well.

We were pleased to welcome six visitors to our Open Meeting this year: there was a very close tussle between David McKee and Ian Cadwallader with David taking the trophy north for the second time.

Chew members went to several Open and Championship meetings. One of the boats who joined this year entered the Southern Championships and was second in the silver fleet at their first championship which they thoroughly enjoyed.