This is the first proper posting on WWSC’s new blog. The idea is to provide up to date news about things happening on an off the water at our club. Last year I did this through the ‘virtual noticeboard’ e-mails that went out fortnightly in May, June and September and weekly in July and August. The blog will follow a similar timetable but should provide a better medium for communication. For a start it’s much easier for me (and other authors) to post to the blog than keep track of hundreds of different e-mail addresses. More importantly the blog gives you as readers more control. If you decide to sign up for the blog – which you do simply by entering your e-mail address into the box on the bottom right hand side of this page – you’ll find that the blog arrives in your in box as an e-mail. You can decide how often you want it and once you’ve read it you can just delete it. And even if you do decide you decide you want to go back and look at something again you can still access it directly through the link on the club website.
What we do need is a name for the blog. ‘Up the Creek’, I am ashamed to say, is a piece of blatant plagiarism on my part since it’s also the name which has been used by the Snowhill Mooring Association for their annual members newsletter. Can you think of an original and appropriate title? Please e-mail or better still post your ideas. I am sure we can run to a small prize for the best suggestion.
On to sailing matters and one of the hot topics over the winter is reviewing and adjusting the handicaps we use for club racing. WWSC follows the RYA’s Portsmouth Yardstick scheme, and this is updated annually on the basis of returns from clubs like ours. But we also have to calculate some handicaps for some classes of boat for which the RYA doesn’t have reliable data. Our policy is explained in more detail on the club web site where you can also view a revised list of handicaps we’re proposing to use from the start of the season. From this you’ll see that there is some good news for Laser sailors. As an Olympic class, sailing a Laser to its handicap is notoriously hard, especially if you are the wrong side of 50 and carrying a few extra pounds. So the two extra points are very welcome. But if anyone thinks that the handicapper does any favours for flag officers I refer you to the revised number for the Laser Vago XD (my other boat) which is losing a whopping 21 points this season. So I don’t think I will be winning anything in that boat (no change there then).
Hopefully you have all now received your annual mail out with programme and newsletter. If you’ve got children you should also have received a registration form and programme describing our Junior events this summer. If for any reason this did not get into your pack copies can be downloaded from the web site. Please bear in mind that our family membership is growing and as Junior Week becomes more and more popular we have decided that 60 children is the maximum number we can enroll. So if you are interested in Junior Week (15th -19th August) this is another good reason why it makes sense to register early.
The next post on this blog should appear towards the end of April to coincide with the start of our racing season on Sunday 1st May. I hope that you enjoy reading it and find it useful.
