Thorpe Bay Yacht Club » Struan Wallace

Big Thanks! Hurricane Nationals 2010 & Sprint Open

Struan Wallace — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:24:27 +0000

On behalf of the Hurricane 5.9 Association I would like to extend a big thank you to TBYC. This years Nationals was said to be the best ever, this was due to all the hard work done behind the scenes. Thank’s to Jo and the catering staff for feeding us all, many of the sailors mention how good the food was. To Gordon and Lorraine and the lovely bar staff for serving lots of drinks, I believe from Nick Elmore, the bar nearly ran out of beer. To the sailing committee, especially to Chris for sorting out the results every day. To Phil Crawford and his Race officers team, working in extremely hot conditions and setting good courses. Big thanks! Tony Clarke and the guard boat crews for your hard work, especially on the Saturday in windy conditions with lots of capsizes and masts down. To my team of event organisers, Kylie Jenkins, Wayne Miller, Pete Sherwin, Paul Palmer, Chris Hull and Andrew Hannah. Thanks for your help and support. To all the club flag officers, Pete Thompson our Commodore and Nick Elmore, Vice commodore, thanks for support. To our prize sponsors, Hyde Sails, Spartan, AW sailboats and Towergate Mardon insurances. To the Hurricane 5.9 association committee and entrants, who made this event such good fun. Finally to Little Max Duce, who did a stirling job sorting out all the trollies and helping the sailors on the beach. Cheers Struan Wallace, Hurricane Treasurer.

Sad News

Struan Wallace — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:57:26 +0000

It’s with regret to announce the passing away of Reg White. Thursday morning he played a round of golf, Thursday afternoon/evening he raced his brightlingsea One Design, just as he was steeping ashore he had a heart attack. He started his catamaran career with the Little America’s Cup and the ‘Lady Helmsman’ C-Class catamaran, the first boat with a wing sail to win a major trophy. Reg went on to become an Olympic Gold medalist in the Tornado (1976 Montreal) with crew John Osborn and also won world championships in 1976 and 1979. His East coast company have built some other famous cats like the Hurricane59, Shark, Dart 16, Dart Hawk F18, Spitfire and their last rocket, the Shockwave F18. Condolences to all the White family

Thorpe Bay have a double at UK Narca Nationals.

Struan Wallace — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:15:20 +0000

Congratulations to our New Narca Uk Open winners, This weekend, TBYC have a double celebration. Nick & Kyle are the new UK Nacra F20 and David White & Crew are the New F18 Narca Uk open champions. I hope the notice board has lots of room for all the new entries from the cat section. With testing conditions at Weston SC on Southampton water, Narca held their UK Nationals, Well done guy’s and see you on home waters soon. Cheers Struan

TBYC Fast Spitfire at Minis bay

Struan Wallace — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:09:05 +0000

David & Kyle had never sailed a spitfire together before untill the Nationals at Minnis Bay S.C. on the 9/10/11th October just past. To come 2nd in a fleet of 22 boats including the top spitfire veterans is a special achievement & there is little doubt that had they been involved with the boat, kindly lent by that oldsea dog Pete Thompson, for a few months competitive practice we would have another pair of catamaran National Champions at Thorpe Bay. Well done guys.
Heres the link to the results http://www.spitfiresailing.org.uk/nresults.asp

from that even older seadog, Glenn Stoneham & Struan Wallace

Pico National 2009 photos on Flickr

Struan Wallace — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:51:23 +0000

TBYC Pico Nationals 2009 photos now on Flickr.

Fast cats away “Texel” 2009

Struan Wallace — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:26:53 +0000

On the 13th June, three boats from the club turned up to sail the biggest catamaran race in the world, with approx 580 boats from twelve different countries on the beach at Texel in Holland. As usual getting off the beach was bad as usual due to the surf. This was my third year, the first time was back in 05 when most boats was destroyed, RFT ‘s included, only 80 boats completed the course that year.

Nick & Kyle on the F20, Pete Sherwin and crew Mark, plus Wayne and I on our Hurricanes joined the 9am early morning start line after successfully launching our kites to break free of the surf in very light F1-2 winds.
Web link for pictures: http://www.roundtexel.com/Default.asp?xlid=en

The start had nearly 500 boats, some decided not to go in the light winds or to attempt getting off the beach. As the race organizes had warned off closing the gates if timed out.
Unfortunately for Pete, he was a casualty at the second gate along with hundreds more and had to sail all the way back, which took nearly as long as doing the whole race.

Wayne and I had a good result for us being 98th boat home but after handicap 223rd but a great result for Nick and Kyle who were 9th boat home on the water and 56th overall on there first Round Texel race, Well done guy’s

Here’s to 2010, just don’t tell the wife

Marconi 3 Piers race

Struan Wallace — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:26:33 +0000

Last weekend in light winds, 4 tbyc boats made the journey to Marconi SC.
Kyle Stoneham and Ollie Herve used Kyle’s Tornado for around the cans racing on the Saturday and won 3rd place out of 35 boats, well-done guys.

Then on the Sunday the weather decided to play tricks with little wind and horrible fog with a variable F3 due to come in. The 3x Piers race stretches for 50 miles up and back down Essex coast from Osea pier to Walton pier. The race officer decided to delay for half an hour to let the fog lift enough to see the water and the wind to fill in.

Neither happened, so the race was started with the intention to shorten course at Colne point. A slow start for everybody, all looking for advantage of tide and wind to get ahead.
At one point, Chris Brooks on Hurricane 307 had the advantage closely followed by Nick and Kyle on the F20, with Kylie and I, Chris Hull and Simon chasing. This was Kylies first open event and long distance race and it was good to see the amount of alcohol such a small person can consume and still stand-up from the night before BBQ.

Lucky for me, having such a light crew was to pay off dividends, All the way up and down the course the Hurricane’s were within 300yds off each other it was at the Colne turning point that Kylie and I started to lead the pack, Most went directly down and were swept out but we cannily, gybe back in shore and had a good angle to power up and be on course for first Hurricane home on the piers race. If only I had read the race instructions properly, Next time Kylie, just kick me. We were home and dry but my mistake lost us 4 places at the finish.

Well done to Nick and Kyle, once the wind picked up a bit the F20 got flying and they got back in double quick time finishing 3rd over the line and 18th on handicap. Simon Steptoe on his F20 was going to join in the fun but had to drop out at the last moment, luckily for us he decided to join in on the BBQ and bring the wine, Most appreciated mate.

TBYC Solent Racing Video

Struan Wallace — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:07:06 +0000

Enjoy the footage by the boys, Well done looks great fun.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another Spitfire tale! Junior National Champions.

Struan Wallace — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:05:09 +0000

Well done David White and Adam Piggott, sailing at Brightlingsea Regfest, They were made Spitfire junior national champions and came second overall one point behind the winner at the Open, would that be a mention on the board I wonder?
This last weekend at Grafham, Hugh styles phoned him and asked to sail with him on hugh’s boat and they had 4 bullets a second and a sixth, however unfortunately the first two races were disqualified cos they went through the start line downwind (hugh was driving) so they didn’t win the event – they need to be helped through that!He had a good weekend though, said he learn’t a lot but needs to talk to Kyle on what he was doing wrong (Only Kidding). Well done David it seems the cat section of TBYC are doing well representing the club around the country.

Willing Crew for the Winter Series Available

Struan Wallace — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:24:13 +0000

Dear Catamaran and Dingy fleets doing the winter series, you need to register now! to take part but best off all we have some willing crew available, these two guys, Simon Brown and Garry Ellis are looking for more sailing experience and are newish members to the club. Drop me a line and I’ll pass on contact details or pop into the club and look on the notice board. Here’s to some cracking winter sailing, God knows it’s got to be better than this summer. Regards, Struan