Race Report - Saturday 16 August 2025

Winter Sprints Run by REACH Youth Sailors

Well, I drew the short straw this week, or the long one, depending on how you look at it. Instead of bobbing around the Harbour in a Laser, I got the honour of sitting on the RIB and spectating. Considering what the breeze was doing, I reckon I was pretty lucky.

We set off with some light rain, but it didn’t last long, although it lingered in the background. The wind decided it would pick up the slack and misbehave instead. From the very first minutes on the water, it was obvious this wasn’t going to be one of those “set and forget” days. The breeze couldn’t decide where it wanted to come from, so it tried everywhere. I started feeling less like a race officer and more like a weather app with 1% accuracy, just making far fetched guesses, and hoping no one noticed.

There was only one person 'over' the whole day who self-nominated and made a mess of their start faster than we could catch up, they did make a comeback, however, so props to them. By race three, we gave up on the rule book and shortened things in a way that World Sailing wouldn’t have approved of, but I would have, had I been racing, and frankly, I wasn’t prepared to wait half an hour for the fleet to go 100m.

All told, it was a decent day out. For the sailors: a test of patience, anger management, and keeping your sense of humour. For the race committee: a chance to stay dry-ish, avoid the misery of drifting backwards on a Laser, and watch everyone chase the breeze and never find it, or at least not enough of it. 

On a serious note, thanks to the team this week: Zoe, Elouise, Charlie, Wendell, and Craig. Course changes were dealt with very efficiently and a good job done. Thanks as well to Tuddy, Van, and Steve for their work with the club and our youth program, hopefully after these 2 weeks of running the races for everyone, the youth team appreciates the pains a race committee has to go through every week. We’ll see you on the water next week, I hear there's some time on the tools required beforehand but it's all part of the fun.

by Healy Ryan

Working Bee - This Saturday from 8am-11am

Don’t Forget, calling all Members!!! Come down and help maintain our club this Saturday.

The annual working bee will be conducted this Saturday 23rd August from 8am. This is an event that takes considerable planning to ensure our club is ready to run smoothly for the summer season. All members are expected to attend – there is a large amount of work to be done. If you are unable to attend on the day, please contact the Commodore, Steven London, and arrange for a job to be undertaken at a time convenient to you. Sprint Races will be held afterward (12pm Briefing 1pm First Warning)

Announcing The Double Bay Regatta 2025

Save the Date: Saturday, 11th October 2025

This year DBSC will be hosting the inaugural Double Bay Regatta. A day to celebrate Laser racing in Double Bay, it is open to all Laser ILCA sailors.

Three races will be held on this single day event on Saturday, 11th October 2025 in the waters off Double Bay in Sydney Harbour.
Cash Prizes will be awarded to winners in ILCA 4, ILCA 6 and ILCA 7 divisions, and the winner of each class will get their name on the Mark Bethwaite Trophy, named after our club legend.

The Notice of Race, Sailing Instructions and Registration will be issued shortly. Until then, lock this date into your sailing calendar.

WHAT'S GOING ON

Club Look-ahead Schedule

• Saturday 23 August:

  • Working Bee - All Members (8:00am start)

  • Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

• Friday 29 August: DBSC Sailors’ Season Opening Dinner

• Saturday 30 August: Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

• Saturday 6 September: Summer Opening Club Championship Races 1 & 2

  • 1pm Briefing, 2:00pm First warning

  • BBQ on the Deck after racing

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Thank you to the members who are sending through information for the newsletter. If you have content for the newsletter, please email it to newsletter@dbsc.com.au by Monday evening.

View all racing results here.
The club’s calendar can be viewed and subscribed to here.
Make a tax deductible donation to DBSC here.

Race Report - Saturday 9 August 2025

Winter Sprints with a Championship Twist!

Last weekend we had volunteer PROs Dr Martin Gill and Gaye Rosen joining us on the start boat to run the racing, and so for this sprints day we ran a mini Champs course. A few showers around made for a gusty/shifty S to SSE course just off Double Bay, with blue sky breaking through on occasion. The course was set South and as the wind tended more to the SSE for the second race, we adjusted the course more to the SSE for the third.

Martin Gill our PRO had his wind instrument up on the Jazzman, and we made great use of his self-written app which showed the wind swinging from 20deg on one side of the course to 20 degrees on the other. Excellent information for deciding on course changes.

We look forward to welcoming new members Martin and Gaye as our PROs on our Club Championship Race days this Season. Please say hi to them and make them feel welcome at the next Championship Race day in Spring.

The short course we had set made for tight racing for the small ILCA 6 fleet, and in the First Race David Airey was 1st over the line, closely followed by Martin White in 2nd, and Brad Cox 3rd. Then it was Martin White winning with a clear lead in the Second Race with Andrew Cox 2nd, David Airey 3rd. Then Martin White again clear ahead in the Third Race was 1st, with Brad Cox (visiting us for the day) in 2nd, Andrew Cox 3rd.

In the larger ILCA7 fleet, the First Race saw Yves Stening 1st over the line (after James and Rod worked through a port vs starboard which slowed them somewhat), followed by Geoffrey Boscoe in 2nd, Patrick Black 3rd. Rod and James continued to compete for the front of the fleet in the second race, where Rod Barnes prevailed in 1st and James Tudball 2nd, Jason Wilkins 3rd. Then in the Final race James Tudball took 1st and Rod Barnes 2nd, Mike Dunne 3rd.

This week we only had one ILCA 4. We welcomed new member Ben Philips, who mixed in with the ILCA 6 fleet. Hopefully we will see more members return to racing this week as the weather returns to more sunshine and less rain!

Thank you to our on-water team lead by Dr Martin Gill and Gaye Rosen as PRO, Steven London as LtRaR, COTD Kerryn Smith and Quentin Burns. Thanks also to our canteen captain Paul Adam (assisted by Geofrey Bosce). Everyone should know that Toasties are now available every Saturday race day, so come and see Paul in the canteen!

by Steven London

Working Bee - Saturday 23rd August from 8am

Calling all Members!!! The annual working bee will be conducted on Saturday 23rd August from 8am. This is an annual event that takes considerable planning to ensure our club is ready to run smoothly for the summer season. All members are expected to attend – there is a large amount of work to be done. If you are unable to attend on the day, please contact the Commodore, Steven London, and arrange for a job to be undertaken at a time convenient to you.

WHAT'S GOING ON

Club Look-ahead Schedule

• Saturday 16 August: Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

• Saturday 23 August:

  • Working Bee - All Members (8:00am start)

  • Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

• Friday 29 August: DBSC Sailors’ Season Opening Dinner

• Saturday 30 August: Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

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Thank you to the members who are sending through information for the newsletter. If you have content for the newsletter, please email it to newsletter@dbsc.com.au by Monday evening.

View all racing results here.
The club’s calendar can be viewed and subscribed to here.
Make a tax deductible donation to DBSC here.

Race Report - Saturday 2 August 2025

All photos by Ben Byford, Harper Spacey and James Tudball

Winter Sprint Racing

Harper Spacey reports

The first week of Saturday sprint racing got off to an exciting start with tricky conditions throughout the day.  A building sou’easterly of 15-25 knots made for shifty conditions and a gusty racecourse.

Double Bay's youth members constituted this week’s race management with Harper Spacey and Raphael McLachlan taking on the duty of PRO, Charles Byford and Tucker McKeon supporting sailors as COTD and Charlotte Jenkins on canteen duty (and assisting on the water).  Thanks to James Tudball and Ben Byford who assisted on both support RIBs. 

Although the conditions were challenging, a solid fleet of mostly ILCA 6’s and 7’s had some tight racing, with Martin White in a Radial and Healy Ryan in a Standard winning all five races! A shout out to new member, Ben Phillips, who persevered and got around the course in his 4.7.

Despite rain, wind and a couple of on-water rescues, the first week of sprint racing was competitive and exciting.

Report on ILCA 4 Youth Worlds - 19-26 July 2025

Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club, Los Angeles

Charlotte Jenkins reports

During our winter holidays (plus the first week of school), four DBSC youth members were lucky enough to escape the cold, rainy weather and spend some time training and then racing at the ILCA 4 Youth World Championships, in Los Angeles, California. The regatta was hosted by Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club, and we launched from the neighbouring Cabrillo Beach Youth Waterfront Sports Centre/Boy Scout Camp, which took about an hour to sail (or half an hour to tow) past the sea wall and out to the racecourse.

We spent four days training with SailCoach, where, as the ‘Down Under’ group, we would start the session with speed-testing lineups to correct our setup and posture, then later join the internationals in short practice races on a start line of 30-50 boats. Back on land, we had detailed video debriefs from Canadian ILCA 7 sailor and coach James Juhasz, who also shared examples from his training group to demonstrate the skills we needed to improve on. 

The regatta consisted of six intense days of racing, with two races completed to schedule each day (including one treacherous race which lasted almost 90 minutes with the first boat reaching the top mark within a minute of the time limit). The first two days were light-moderate while the others provided what I would describe as perfect hiking and surfing conditions (Zoe might disagree as she preferred the lighter air). The course also had painfully strong tide of up to 12 boat lengths a minute (= 1.6 kts), which created huge line sag at the starting line and chaos at the top mark with underlaid boats. Luckily we were only postponed out on the water a few times while waiting for the sea breeze to kick in a couple of hours after the morning smog cleared, or when the robot marks refused to cooperate and forced the race committee into a game of hide and seek. 

The Australian team consisted of 7 boys and 7 girls, of which 2 boys (Raphael McLachlan and Tucker McKeon) and 2 girls (Charlotte Jenkins and Zoe Allen) are from DBSC. The boys fleet had a total of 140 sailors, and the girls fleet had a total of 100 sailors. Both fleets were split into halves for qualifying and final races. 

After 12 races, the final results were:

Boys fleet (140):

91st Raphael McLachlan

118th Tucker McKeon

Girls fleet (100):

53rd Charlotte Jenkins

92nd Zoe Allen

Photos courtesy of SailCoach, or as marked

WHAT'S GOING ON

Club Look-ahead Schedule

• Saturday 9 August: Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

• Saturday 16 August: Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

• Saturday 23 August:

  • Working Bee (8:00am start)

  • Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

• Friday 29 August: DBSC Sailors’ Season Opening Dinner (details to follow)

• Saturday 30 August: Winter Sprints (12pm Briefing, 1:00pm First warning)

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Thank you to the members who are sending through information for the newsletter. If you have content for the newsletter, please email it to newsletter@dbsc.com.au by Monday evening.

View all racing results here.
The club’s calendar can be viewed and subscribed to here.
Make a tax deductible donation to DBSC here.