Many congratulations to Blithfield on their fantastic work in hosting the inlands.  Great feel to the club and great work from the PRO and his team.  Many thanks to you all.

Congrats also to Tricky Dicky & Ellie - a very close fought event, going into the final race with Filthy Georgeous, the Kids (Stu & Matt) and Windy & Jilly all in the frame...

We were consistently nearly good enough..

GGGGGG

I completely agree with Graham. One of the best meetings I've been to for years. Many thanks to the caterers, bar staff and the race team.

I would just like to thank everyone for making me so welcome. I had a brilliant weekend!

An excellent weekend's sailing.  Great organisation and special thanks to Tim Male, aided I understand by family Males.  

Well done to the Biggs team, once again showing that Midlands contenders are up there. 

Sutton to decide on the 22 October.

steve

Are there any full results available.

Many thanks

I'll post a link to the results, report and photos on here later today or tomorrow.
(I've only just got up)

just wanted to thank Blithfield S.C. for a fantastic weekend of Merlin Action. I had a great time both on and of the water.
good weather, great competition and a fantastic crowd.
what more could you ask for.

Results, report and a couple of photos on the link below. 

Info on DVD and painting by a local artist to follow.

NB in these results, I have taken the libery to reinstate two boats who were disqualified from R5 following a confusion with the signing-off sheets. If the protest comittee do not agree with this, then corrected results will be re-issued in due course. Apologies to those boats affected.

Whoops, Sutton is 15th Oct

What a great weekend!  Brilliant weather, club, hospitality, racing (not too much wind for a still fairly novice helm/ex-crew), facilities, food, ale and company.  So good in fact, stayed on one more night in tent and had to drag myself home Monday lunchtime.

Hi - I see that the Inlands report has been sent out - please can it be sent to me so we can get it up on www.dinghysailingmagazine.co.uk

Thanks - if we can be cc into all race reports and we can get all the Merlin events on here too!!

Tim just a note, Y&Y has Stuart as 2nd and Dave 3rd, but I remember at the prize giving Dave was 2nd and Stuart 3rd.

What a KEFUFFLE getting the results onto the web! Revised results are now online. Due to all sorts of bugs with exporting the sailwave reuslts, we ended up retyping all of the race sheets again! (I accidently sent the wrong ones to Y&Y this morning so I'll get that changed too - Dave is 2nd on tiebreak, Stuart 3rd.)

Give us the lowdown on the sailwave bugs please and which version - I've never had a problem using it for the CVRDA results.

It was a great weekend but I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the way the protest was handled, as plenty of boats did sail the wrong course and got away with it.

Wow thats pretty cool, how did you manage to blank out the 'name box'

test

how about you put a space in the name box? 

as far as the protest goes, you can't protest the first 52 boats if you are 53rd - how can someone in 53rd place have witnessed all of the boats in front of him go the wrong way? clearly the person in 53rd couldn't have been looking where they were going as they wouldn't have had time! I'm sure that the first 10 boats at least sailed the correct course.

.

There is always some reason why you were last; probably you don't sail very well but people will always find a reason.

I wasn't there so don't kno wthe details and would be interested to be enlightened.

It is possible for a boat being 53rd at the end to witness 53 boats going to the wrong mark, if say he was first at the time. Alternatively if the problem was rounding the wrong way, you could witness that from the back if the course was a 'river' style course where you could see all the boats comming back the wrong side and you were at the back.

However, from the postings on this thread, it looks like the protestee wasn't in a good position to see the front of the fleet, and some one detached from the front pack made a navigation error and the middle followed.

test

Can Mr Blank please explain what the error was on behalf of the boats in front as I'm sure we sailed exactly the same course for both races 1 and 2. Also the course seemed to be correctly laid.

In the first race, a good number of boats (at least 15-20) in the middle of the fleet sailed the wrong way round (I think) mark 8 on the second lap. I know its hard to prove exactly which boats did it right and wrong without someone observing all round the course, but it did seem a little unfair on the boats that did sail the correct course as so many got it wrong and weren't disqualified.

Even so if you can't prove that all 53 boats did it wrong there is no protest. The burden of proof is on the protestor to establish that the boats he is protesting sailed the wrong course. If he had written down the numbers of boats he actually saw get it wrong and had witnesses it may have been a differant story.

I know for a fact that we sailed the same course and went round the bouys as laid out on the committe boat leaving them to the same side every lap in the first two races. So did the 6 or so boats around us and we came 16th.

What may have made it look as if some people went the wrong side is that about 1/3rd of the fleet gybed out from 8 (Assuming i've got the right leg - i'm not 100% au fait with Blithfield) heading to the right had side of the course perhaps making it look as if they had gone the wrong way around the mark.

-   The course was 1p-7p-4s-6s-8s-5p (see Blithfield website for plan)
-   I was 'lower' middle fleet and all those around me sailed the correct course.
-   Some did gybe after passing 8 so as to reach, instead of run, to 5
-   It paid to approach 8 on Starboard.
-   If some boats had rounded wrong - the shouting would have been heard by many in the middle order of the fleet.
-   With this course it would have been unnatural for an experienced helm to take the mark to port.

I guess this is an 'old wife's tale' that is likely to run & run & ................

Good racing  -  good food  -  good laugh!   you get it all at Blithfield  -  hope to see some of you for the Barrel series during the winter - details to be announced shortly.

As I was standing on the bank for the first race watching you guys rounding mark 8, the top thirteen boats passed it correctly on lap two.  The majority of the following fleet then passed it the wrong way.  My protest (!) was thrown out because it was out of time and I didn't inform the boats I was protesting.
I don't know how the majority of the fleet can sign off to say they sailed the course correctly without infringing............

same old story of the top guys that are in the 'club'. they don't want to upset anyone so they keep quiet. no one wants to protest a mate, but we all want close good quality racing, hence we sail merlins!! but please stick to the rules. at the back we seem to miss out because some of the top end 'look after them selves and their mates'. if you make a mistake, take it like a man/women, do your turns, unwind an incorrect mark rounding, RAF or DNF. 

the comment 'the top thirteen boats passed it correctly on lap two. The majority of the following fleet then passed it the wrong way.' shows us that the top helms understood the course, the next flight/group got it wrong, but nothing happened. did they sign their declaration in good faith, or did they know they had made a mistake. protests could help, let's use them as an effective tool to great racing and not be scared of retribution or upsetting a fellow sailor. it's the rules!!!

here's to merlin sailing, great weekend btw.

Sorry, it shows us nothing. I would have been about 14th or 15th by that stage in the race and definatley left it to starboard each rounding. Had i - or indeed anyone else around me - left it to port i would be on the the phone to Noble's not posting on the forum - there would have been absolute choas! 

To leave that mark to port would have meant bearing off through the flock of boats that were trying round - whichever way they were trying to do it - with no rights over them.

I'm not saying that nobody at all got it wrong, but nobody around me got it wrong.

Certainly there were a few boats that gybed off to the right hand side of the run in an attempt to find clean air (I was among them), and i beleieve that is why there is this confusion.

am over it...   how brilliant was that hog roast!?

I agree with Peter Male.  It is unlikely that the majority of Merlin sailors would have sailed around 8 to port on that course. If anyone did, I am sure that it would have been pointed out to them very quickly.

Regarding sign off.  I believe that most sailors sign off in good faith.

I think the protest was handled with proper procedure. Thats the way it must be; not arbitary application of rules.  (Speeding fines by camera on the other hand.....)

The guys at the top are mostly good friends who know each other pretty well on and off water.  But the competitive spirit is very strong, thats why we race. I dont think there is much easy going relaxation of rules for their mates.  More likely a cold assessment of the possibility of success. The guys at the back are also good friends but sometimes take silly tactical chances that may pay off against inexperienced or asleep opposition.  Mostly, they dont pay off and they (me included) stay towards the back.

Steve

It may be unlikely, but it did happen this time, and a number of people witnessed it.

I too agree that most people sign off in good faith, and this time I think people were simply unaware that they had sailed the wrong course.

My quibble with the protest was that it was dismissed for the reason that the people protesting hadn't told every boat that went wrong before the end of the race (This being completely inpractical). But at the end of the day, it probably wouldn't have made any difference to the overall results, so I'm only really 'fussing' as a matter of principle!

I was in 27 place for the first 3 laps of that race and always approched the bouy on port from the out of bounds line (the lifting side), and every lap after the first gybed straight on to starboard at the mark along with others. and if I or my very rules vocal crew had seen this wtong way round there would have been a lot of noise, and protests, and bits of boats on the water.
Mind you we did pass the "bouy" on its port side and not its starboard side ??????

p.s. to blank the box
hold down the ALT key and enter the number 255 on the numerical key pad,it produces a empty chara.
you can also use any number above 31 to produce one of the ASCII set.
if you use under 31 I hold no libility to un crashing your computer..

The same thing happened at the Bloody Mary a few years back, when most of the fleet had gone the wrong way and were disqualified although I cant remember everyone being told of the protest before the end of the race.

Under the rules of sailing, the protest committee could have extended the time limit if there was good reason. But I imagine they though there was no go reason, as it seems the protestor was standing on teh bank, so could have lodged it in good time.

That raises a query in my mind, as protests can only be raised by 'boats', ' race committees' or 'protest committees'. What the chap on the bank aone of these?

Secondly. looking at the map, I would guess it was nearly a beat to mark 8, ceratinly would be approaching closehauled, so it is concievable that approaching a winward mark from the middle on Staboard a helm may automatically think to round to port. 
But, even if that did happen, and no one collided and no one shouted, the port rounding boat would have gained no advatage at all.

clever fellow.

how long before mags traps it?

works well

like it

Just for the record, both Richard Whitworth and Pat Blake rounded marks during the regatta the wrong way, and both unwound themselves correctly, so to allege that the top of the fleet are mates that just look after themselves and ~#* the rest is a fallacy.

GGGGGGG

Pro photos are now available to buy - have a look on the link below

More merchandising:

a local artist, Sheila Godfrey, did a painting at the inlands - the scan is on the link below. 

The actual size of the framed print is 18" x 10" (the frame 1.25" flat pine) The prints are open-ended, (not limited edition) and cost is 55GBP plus 6.95GBP P+P.

To order, please contact her on 01283 840771/ 07989 568582.
(delivery is approx. 3-4 weeks)