Passage Island Race

Your editor was in Tuscany for this one, so I don't have a lot of detail. Intuit 3 won the performance division while Lodestar and Saltire duelled it out in cruising while Kindred Spirit struggled in light air and failed to finish. In the end, Saltire corrected almost three minutes ahead of Lodestar and eleven minutes ahead of Intuit. I think Donald volunteered to write a June Winks just so he could trumpet this victory, but he was foiled by the fact that the usual editor is also in charge of calculating results.

Summer Shorts

Something strange happened in the Shorts this year: wind. The Pegasus tradition of barbecuing during the races was prevented twice by excessive heeling. One race we even started with a reef in the main.

Cruising Division

Performance Division

Something horrible happened to the tables above, but I blame Bill. The columns with numbers are PHRF rating, the four races (positions, parentheses on the throwout), and the total points for the series.

We added spinnaker divisions this year as an experiment; the idea was to make what is traditionally the lightest air series of the season into a faster race. We definitely got more boats than the previous year, including a couple that aren't in the results (if you don't tell the race committee who you are and your sail number hasn't raced in VARC, well there isn't much we can do). Even if allowing spinnakers didn't cause the better turnout, I am sure it caused the very welcome wind.

I didn't divide the results into spinnaker and white. All the performance boats flew spinnakers while only two cruising division boats (Makai and The Point) chose to.

As you can see in the results, Aldebaran is back and this was the new crew's first race in her. My Harley is in the process of joining. Makai is an honorary Tiddly boat, at least until they decide on which club to join, as they raced for Tiddly during the Gibson's weekend.

English Bay Scramble

The second annual event was a great success; even some of the boats that spent time communing with Spanish Bank were pleased with the day. A few skippers complained that the tactics are much too obvious, at least in a westerly during flood tide. This may be true, but in Div 6 the first and second placed boats sailed the marks in a different order to the other five (beaten) boats who went the obvious way.

All the results are available on the Tiddly website, but the Tiddly boats included:
Senza and My Harley, 1st and 2nd in Division 0.
Rhumb Line, 3rd in Division 2.
Carrera III, 3rd in Division 5.
Mumbles, Lodestar, Pegasus, and Makai were 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th in Div 6.
Broos, Intuit 3, and Urban Well were 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the 242 division.

In the post-race dinghy race, many crew members took the opportunity to show their skippers why they shouldn't listen to suggestions from the rail. In five races, apparently only one skipper was defeated by a crew member.

The highlight for most sailors was the post-race party; here is our Social Director's report.

The 2nd Annual English Bay Scramble, hosted by TCYC, and sponsored by North Sails was a great success. Despite rain predictions much hoped for in the Interior, August 23rd dawned sunny and warm, albeit with very little breeze. 32 boats came out for the race including 10 Tiddly boats and 22 VARC boats from other clubs.

English Bay Scramble start - Rhumbline and others drift around!

Congratulations to Tiddly boats Senza, My Harley (new members), Rhumbline, Carrerra III, Mumbles II, Lodestar and Broos for finishing in the top 3 in their divisions. Final race results are posted on the Tiddly website at http://www.tiddlycove.bc.ca/scram-results.htm.

The Maritime Museum proved a popular venue for our post-race barbecue and party. About 150 people came out to drink beer, eat burgers and dance to the tunes of Thomas Bendle and The Altar Boys. For those of you who haven't heard Thomas, you've been missing out … he kept the crowd dancing 'til 9:30 p.m. and if we hadn't announced last call and last song simultaneously, we're pretty sure they would have kept right on going!

The post-race barbecue gets underway at the Maritime Museum

Thomas Bendle and The Altar Boys get things rocking

The volleyball net set up on the park area beside the Museum got lots of use and we got off 4 dinghy race heats and a final as big boat racers demonstrated their skill (or lack thereof) in dinghy racing in our first annual "Rail Meat Challenge". Thanks to Patrick Munro from CBC Radio for volunteering his time to run commentary on the dinghy racing and for Mac Sailing Academy for donating the dinghies. The picture below does not really do justice to the dinghy race (why didn't someone get a shot of Glen Mitchell bailing his dinghy while shouts of "he's sinking" echoed from shore?). Partial proceeds from the Rail Meat Challenge were donated to the BC Wildfire Fund.

Rail Meat Challenge Dinghy Race

Thank you to all the Tiddly volunteers who contributed their time to make the 2003 English Bay Scramble a great success:

Event Organizing Committee: Gord Wylie, Penny Bax, Ellen Fowler, Brian Ferris

Race Committee: Chuck Ramsey, Val Marie Coutts, Brian Ferris aboard "Moomba"

Scramble Volunteers: Sabine Granoux who sold barbecue tickets, t-shirts and dinghy race tickets for 3+ hours, Fred and JoAnn Moore and Phil DeGeller who ran the barbecue and cooked over 130 hamburgers, Val Edwards who ran the buffet and chopped onions until she had tears in her eyes (literally), Richard and Svetlana Evans, the world's best bartenders, (and Jack Kawaguchi and Michael Spearing who pitched in behind the bar as the night wore on), Heather Wylie who handled race registration, John Bassingthwaighte who helped with setup, cleanup and assembled over 100 water bottles and caps, Leila Sisounthone who made the Club some new racing flags, Donald Munro who picked up the volleyball set and delivered it to the Museum, Roy Mitchell who helped with prizes and many others who helped with the clean-up. Lastly, nothing is possible without a great idea, so thanks to Andy Verhoeven, who had the great idea for this race.

Thank you also to the following sponsors for supporting the 2003 English Bay Scramble:

Event Sponsor: North Sails (Dave Miller and Dennis Lefeaux)
Dinghy Race Challenge Sponsor: Macdonald Sailing Academy (Ross & Marcia Macdonald)
Other Sponsors: Barnstorm Creative (Ron Fiedler) ; Odlum Brown (Steve Phillips) ; TOS Insurance: Ron Defieux

As host club, It is always nice to receive some external validation on an event of this nature and for that we thank Peter Arcus on "Soleil" for taking the time to write the following note to our club:

Congratulations on a great event on Saturday. All members of the crew of "Soleil" had a great time sailing in the main event and also at the dinghy races. Personally I thought the food at the BBQ was superior in quality … The beverages were well priced and those providing service from the front desk to website all did a great job. As well, our crew "won" two draw (door?) prizes and our boat was given a Mustang Airforce PFD in a VARC boat draw. For these our thanks to all the sponsors as well.
Congratulations to all on a great job well done!
- Peter Arcus on "Soleil" -

We want the 2004 English Bay Scramble to be even more successful than this year and ask any and all Tiddly members to send in their suggestions and ideas on improvements. We've already received some great suggestions on the barbecue and the race (for example, we will be trying to move the start to a more central location on the course (anyone know someone with a power boat and windlass who could help us out with race committee next year?), and we are committed to announcing race results earlier next year! BUT WE WANT MORE INPUT!!! Please email your ideas, comments or suggestions to Penny Bax (penny.bax@telus.net) or Gord Wylie (gwylie@ivanhoecambrige.com).

We are also looking for at least one new Tiddly member on the 2004 EBS Organizing Committee so if you're interested in getting involved, please let Penny or Gord know.

Penny Bax, Social Coordinator and Party Provocateur

Editor's Note: Glen's story is that his dinghy filled when a sudden puff disturbed the calm of the start sequence and he was bailing, not trying to invent a new propulsion technique; the editor, despite much less dinghy sailing experience (ie, sailing the 50 feet to the start line), was able to immediately drain his dinghy by converting a death roll into an accidental gybe during the same puff. Simon Hill, well known magazine editor, topped both feats with an actual capsize after converting a brilliant start into DFL by using a windhole well past the layline. In another heat, Marcia MacDonald was defeated in a photo finish, so it wasn't all skill determining the outcome. The photo above was taken during a big puff as evidenced by the fact that the average race took ten minutes for a two leg course of about 100 feet total distance.

False Creek Adventures, part 1.

Attached is a photo I took today of a sailboat clearly in distress in False Creek. It is situated east of the BC Pavilion in the north side of the bay dominated by Science World.

Now you'll notice a red marker attached. I can take some credit for that. In fact, yesterday whilst riding my bike I did a bit of a double take...was that a mast I saw sticking up from the water? Indeed it was. Later after I arrived home from riding I called the Vancouver Police Department to report a sunken vessel in what I believe (they say so) is their jurisdiction. After several attempts to circum (here I'm not sure if it is "vent" or "navigate") the telephone system I did speak to a lady who it seemed to me was suppressing giggles at the thought! She was a hard sell to even believe that VPD had a vessel of any kind! After a long time on hold she informed me that I needed to call Search and Rescue and promptly gave me the toll free number. I assured her that this was not a S/R situation but a navigable hazard. At last I gave up and called S/R and had a long chat with Dave. Because "Winks" is a family newsletter, I'll not repeat his comments about the VPD's handling of marine matters.

He later called back for more information and eventually dispatched the Kits Coast Guard Cutter to the scene whereupon the aforementioned red marker was attached. I gather they'll have to now take responsibility for removing it! That would be worth a raft up just to watch (If only we could get permission!). It is tough work being a good citizen!

Glen Mitchell, better known as Geln to his Swiftsure friends.

Other Racing News

Lots of Tiddlies competed in lots of races last summer; more news when I track down our roving reporter.

COMING EVENTS

Tiddly Bits

Gord Wylie's constant complaint about being the youngest Tiddly should shortly be resolved.

Check out http://www.bethwaite.com/bethwaite/articles/magic_circle/story_mjksrklprt_6393_1.html for advice on winning from a successful boat designer (whose son, also successful, designed the 49er).

This link is also interesting: http://www.sailnet.com/collections/racing.