Just a reminder that normal Twilight pointscore racing resumes this Friday evening and will continue throughout the second half of the season as per the sailing program. Handicaps for this weeks racing have now been posted on the Yacht page of the website, and please note that despite the flexible format adopted for the sweepstake races over the last few weeks that spinnakers will not be allowed in pointscore twilight races for the remainder of the season.

Following the Yacht meeting held in mid December to review the trial weekend yacht racing program adopted in the first half of the season, the consensus view based on feedback received was that the format for weekend racing should be revised for the remainder of the season. Most skippers indicated that the twilight racing program should continue unchanged while the most indicated that they were not able to race every weekend due to family and other commitments. While further discussion will be required to determine a new format for next season, it was subsequently proposed that in addition to the full weekly twilight racing program, that the following weekend races would be retained or added for the remainder of the current season:

Sun 12/1    Handicap Race 4 KS Series
Sun 19/1     Interclub Race at SLMASC (extra interclub race added)

Sun 9/2      Handicap Race 5 KS Series
Sat 15/2     Interclub Race at MPASC

Sat 15/3     Interclub Race at SLMASC
Sun 23/3    Handicap Race 6 KS Series

April Races TBC

The proposed program for races at SLMASC for the remainder of the season therefore includes:
– Weekly Friday Twilight races;
– 1 Sunday Handicap race at SLMASC each month; and
– 1 Saturday Scratch interclub race at MPASC or SLMASC each month.

On weeks where no weekend race is scheduled at SLMASC, yachts are able to race at MPASC on Saturdays if they wish. The program will again be revisited at the end of season to determine the new format to be adopted for next season.

An updated Yacht Sailing Program along with any further details will be published next week once confirmed at the Sailing Committee meeting on Monday night.

We hope to see you back on the water this weekend on both Friday night and in Sundays Handicap race at SLMASC.

Smooth Sailing for 2014!

Team SLMASC

On behalf of the Sailing Committee, we wish all of Team SLMASC a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and successful year ahead.

For those who are or will be travelling to National titles and major regatta’s or races over the next few weeks, we wish you a safe journey and know that you will represent yourself and the club well. Best of luck and please keep us informed of your results and any other interesting tales so that we can share these with other club members (please email to webmaster@slmasc.org).

For those who are not going away and are interested in racing over the Christmas – New Year period, the club is holding 2 ‘Sweepstake’ (Non-Point Score) yacht races on Friday 27th December and Friday 3rd January to allow crews to keep sailing if they wish without disadvantaging those who are away in the point score. These two weeks ‘Sweepstake’ races will operate as normal Handicap races (with Divisions 1 & 2) with prizes but no points being awarded to the winners. Handicaps will be adjusted between the two races however when Point Score racing resumes on Friday 10th January, handicaps will then revert to the pre-Sweepstake Handicaps.

As these are non-point score races, there was a suggestion (request) made at last Fridays BBQ by some of the ‘over hyped’ etchell boys that yachts be allowed to fly spinnakers in these 2 Sweepstake races ….. as if they don’t cause enough havoc already!! 😉 As the Twilight handicaps do not make allowance for using spinnakers this would be unfair to boats sailing non-spinnaker ….. so for these 2 Sweepstake races only, in addition to the 2 normal Non-Spinnaker Twilight Divisions, any boats wanting to sail with a spinnaker can start in a SEPARATE ‘Spinnaker Division’ that will have a SCRATCH start on the fall of the number 15. The winner for the Spinnaker Division will be decided by first past the post (no TCF handicaps to be applied ….. just for fun racing with bragging rights to the winner!) and this division will have no impact on the results for the normal Div 1 & 2 races.

We look forward to seeing some of you in the Sweepstake races over the next 2 weeks, but if you are going away, please travel safely and we look forward to seeing you back on the water when Twilight Point Score racing  resumes from Friday 10th January 2014.

Enjoy your break and Smooth Sailing for 2014!!

Team SLMASC