The outcome of the championship could not have been closer. Smith and Needham were tied on 10 points with Martin and Lowry, Holt and Smit just one further back. However, based on the results of the last race, Andy Smith and Tin Needham took the UK Championship title for 2016 in their Rondar boat.
Event Website: sap505worlds.com
Rondar Raceboats 505 come in 1st, 2nd & 3rd at the UK 505 Nationals!! Find out more about the racing and results at Yachts & Yachting.
Thursday 15, Friday 16, Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 September
https://rlymyc.org.uk/OnTheWater/Racing/Racing_Events/K6_ViperNationals/OnlineEntry/Payment.aspx
Rondar built 505’s came first second and fourth in the German nationals winning 6 out of the 10 races!
UK team top 50 boat fleet.
First British 505 victory in Kiel since 1995 – Andy Smith/Tim Needham
Smith/Needham showed their class by winning the first race of the day and after having been 3 rd in the second they could just sit and watch the third race. They were already the winners! Great sailing with five wins and no race worse than 10th place (which they could discard together with the last race).
Wolfgang Hunger/Julien Kleiner, Germany were second over all and Ian Pinell/Alex Davies, GBR, third. Jörgen and Jacob Bojsen-Möller, Denmark, were hunting them from behind, but though they had a nice series the last day 3-1-4, they ended on 4th place, 2 points behind Pinell/Davies. Richard Lovering/Matt Alavado finished the British triumh by ending up fifth over all.
Kieler Woche was the last event in the 505 Euro Cup 2016, but the results of the cup are still to be calculated. This was one of the last major regattas before the world Championships in Weymouth, starting in the end of July. The British team has showed that they have a real chance to take the World Championship title this year. It might be a battle between the two teams on this picture, Team Smith and Team Holt (with two titles in row), but there are many others wanting to give them a match.
Following another very successful Squib National Championship at Weymouth, The Squib Class, in conjunction with Rondar Raceboats Ltd, Westbury, are pleased to announce further progress on the new version Squib which has been under development.
For more information visit www.rvyc.org.uk/wp
Photo © www.segel-bilder.de
Britain’s Andy Smith and Tim Needham might also start to think about their 505 World Championships prospects in a slightly different light after clinching the high calibre 505 Class for the first time. Smith cites their victory as their biggest triumph yet, winning with a race to spare. Three British boats finish in the top five, with Ian Pinnell and Alex Davies taking third in the 50 boat fleet.
“This is huge for us. We thought if we sailed well then a podium would be great for us but to actually pull it off is just great. We could not quite beat Wolfgang Hunger in the first race but third place was enough. We have real attention to detail in making the boat sail fast in all conditions. We have worked hard with the rig and are going fast.” Said a delighted Smith.
Full report by Andi Robertson see :
http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/190318/Kieler-Woche-day-4
We talked to Paul Young, Managing Director or Rondar Boats, about the boats they build, making changes to classes and also his thoughts on club sailing, boat ownership, and what can be done to invigorate participation in the sport.
Mark: Paul could you first of all tell me a bit of the history of Rondar?
Paul: Yes, the company was originally started in the mid-sixties, so I think we’ve just had our fiftieth birthday. It was originally started by a couple of guys who were up in London in Radnor Mews, and they swapped the Radnor around to get the name, Rondar boats. At some point in the first two or three years, it changed ownership, and moved down to Stem Lane in New Milton, and that was the company that put Rondar on the map. There was a big explosion of dinghy sailing in the late sixties, early seventies, and fibreglass was coming through and they got up to a point of employing fifty-plus people, making seven or eight hundred boats a year – it was quite a big business.
Throughout the late seventies, and early eighties, there were recessions, dinghy sailing declined a little bit, and they moved into industrial molding, and eventually the company name and various models got sold to Peter White and Phil Milanes, who moved them up here to Wiltshire. Peter White was the 1973 505 World Champion and was the boat builder and a sailmaker for Seahorse Sails and Phil was the legendary foil maker, so they took over the production and brought it here. I was crewing for Pete in the 80’s and bought it in 1991 when Pete wanted to do other things, and I’ve been here ever since, basically.
We currently make the Firefly, the Enterprise, the 505, we’ve just started making 470s, and then in keelboats we make the K6, the Viper, and the Sonar, and we are currently working with the Squib class, which will hopefully come on stream in the near future, and join the other classes. We also build K1, Fireball, and Solo for other companies. Over the years I have been here we have made over 30 classes.
Mark: You have a small but skilled team building these boats. How do they switch between the different classes that you have to build?
Paul: We’re pretty lucky in the sense that our core team of laminators are all local, and some are related to each other and they have also been with me since 1991, so they could basically do it in their sleep, would probably the best way of describing it. They have the skills to build epoxy carbon 505s and go through to a collegiate Firefly and back to a Sonar, and that’s actually much hard than it sounds because all these boats have different strength and weight requirements, and key bits you have to get right, and they have quite a big library of experience to draw on.
Mark: Much of the machining you have to do for the various bespoke parts for these boats, how is that done and how do you handle it?
Paul: Over time, we’ve realized that the sourcing of these parts, and the ability to have all these specialized parts was pretty key to having the end product right, and so we’ve actually developed an in-house team of a couple of guys who basically make all of our bespoke fittings. We can do pretty much everything in house now and that obviously gives us quite a good ability to either tailor make things to suit particular customer’s needs or we can adapt boats and make unique fittings that make the boat perform better.
Mark: You’ve dealt with a number of classes which have gone through changes throughout the years, the Firefly being an example with the deck moldings. How do you work with the classes to go through these transitions?
Paul: That’s a good question. Our preferred method is to work very closely with the class, ascertain what we feel is the essential core element of that boat. For example with the Firefly, it started life as the first mass produced dinghy, immediately after the war when Fairey Marine had empty yards and glue ovens because they were no longer required to make Mosquito Airplanes, and so they adapted the boat to fit their production technique. That meant that it was available in volume, and at the right price, which got boats being sold to colleges and universities. We saw that trying to get the Firefly back into being the collegiate boat of choice was a key strategy for the class, so one of the things that we were looking to achieve out of it was a quick build time, a pretty robust boat, compliance with the Recreational Craft Directive, and all the things that would be important to that market. The class, of course, is mostly interested in racing the boats at weekend, so there was a slight need to appreciate each other’s position, but I think with the Firefly we’ve achieved it. It has become the collegiate boat of choice again, and plastic Firefly’s frequently owned by schools or colleges can win the Nationals and have done so, so hopefully that’s a good blend of the two attributes.
Mark: With the Sonar, you’ve been selling a number of boats to the USA and directly to the clubs, do you think this is a model which clubs are more and more moving towards and might well happen in the UK?
Paul: It certainly works in a lot of other areas of the world – effectively, in the US, comparatively few people own their own boats. Yacht clubs tend to provide them and then charge higher levels of membership fee in order to give the members the right to use those boats. It also tends to ensure that the clubs have matched fleets of boats, that the racing is close and interesting, and it means that people who want to sail but maybe live in rented apartments or live in cities or live in places where they can’t easily store a boat or work on a boat, have the option to go sailing.
I think a lot of yacht clubs in this country, were sort of developed in the fifties and sixties where people made their own boats and therefore we have an explosion of private boat ownership. I think now when you look at a lot of dinghy parks, there’s a lot of unused boats sitting around, and I think clubs have effectively lost control of what is raced because of all this private ownership, so yes, I could see that over the next fifteen or twenty years we would move towards this model, and it’s also very prevalent in Europe as well.
Mark: In this country youth sailing is extremely strong, but then there is a steep drop off where sailors are just unable to take part in the sport due to factors such as finances and time pressures. Do you think clubs moving towards club-owned fleets could help bridge that gap and keep sailors engaged in the sport after their initial youth sailing?
Paul: Absolutely. I think it’s actually vital that we do what we can to provide a support network for sailors. When I was young and grew up, you could buy a boat for fifty quid and slap a coat of household paint on it and go sailing – it was all acceptable in those days. These days, kids who come out of university, they have other priorities; they’ve probably got a big student debt that we never had, they have time pressures, they have to get a job, they could work anywhere in the world whereas most of us tended to go back to where our parents were and found a job locally. There are an awful lot of things that have changed, and I think if keen sailors could join a club and use the boats that are there and carry on racing, without all the problems of boat ownership, I think that would go a long way towards keeping them in the sport.
Mark: Now, talking of classes, at the moment we’ve got a situation in British sailing especially where there is an aging demographic of the sailors. What could that aging demographic do to encourage younger sailors into their class?
Paul: I think that’s a really good question. One of the things that helped me when I was young and starting was that there were older members of my club who would lend me their boats to go to open meetings or would, if I crewed for them on a Sunday they’d let me race the boat on a Wednesday night and so on. I would love to think that if all the people who’ve had a good time sailing in their life could think slightly altruistically, and maybe when they’re selling their boat they could try and see if there’s some youngsters at their club and maybe sell it to them a thousand pounds cheaper or something, if they stay in the club and race it. I’d love to see more of the sailing crowd looking to further the existence of the sport.
When I look back at my sailing, I’ve had many happy hours on the water, I’ve got friends all over the world, I’ve had a fantastic time sailing. It would personally give me great pleasure to try and do some kid somewhere a good deal when I get to a point where I’m hanging up my sailing boots. I think that would be a lovely thing for people to consider.
Mark: For one of the classes you build, the 505, it’s a huge year in the UK with the World Championship coming to Weymouth. What’s does this mean for the class?
Paul: I think it’s great for the UK class. The class has struggled a little bit because of the slightly elite nature of the boat, and they’re expensive machines to own and campaign. Having said that, they offer a very high standard of racing. There are multiple world and Olympic champions finishing twentieth and so on in the fleet. It’s an extremely tough fleet to do well in. We have a long history of British success, which I think helps, but it’s a pretty make or break year for the class in the UK. I’d love to see them use this world event and the interest it will create as a springboard to try and persuade more people to come and sail what, to me, is still the best dinghy in the world, to be honest.
Mark: Which brings me on to your own sailing. Are you getting any time to sail yourself while running Rondar?
Paul: Sadly, not as much as I would like! I have two sons who take time, and a family, and a business to run and a lot of business is now in the US and further afield so I do travel a fair bit. But for my own personal sailing, if you cut me through the middle, I’d have 505 written in there like a stick of rock, I guess. I also thoroughly enjoy the K6, I love racing that it is a fantastic boat, I was at Alderbugh last weekend, and I’ve had a lot of fun in the Viper in different parts of the world. We have our first international regatta in Bermuda this November where we’ll have sixty boats racing out of the America’s Cup Centre in Bermuda, and that should be great fun. It’s the biggest regatta I think they’ve ever had in Bermuda in a one-design class.
photo: Steve Arkley
Mark: Time pressures with family commitments are making it very difficult for people to get our sailing at the weekend and there seems to be a rise in weekday sailing. Do you think that this is going to end up the way that people go and that you’ll find far more people using their club during the week than the weekend?
Paul: Again, absolutely. I think when you look at the average person, a day at the weekend has become a very precious thing – it’s a huge amount of time that can be put into many different directions, and I think sailing has been the victim of that. I go all over the world, and a lot of the successful clubs that I go to, are racing two or three, or possibly four nights midweek. They race mid-afternoons. I think people’s work commitments have also changed, the internet has changed things, people can now work from home and they can write emails on phones from the sailing club and so on, so I do think that the way that we traditionally think of sailing in England as being a Sunday sport is part of the reason why we have a decline. I think we urgently need to sit down and reappraise how the world works and try and make sailing fit within the way the world is rather than expecting the world to move where sailing is.
Mark: Paul, thank you very much for your time and your thoughts.
Paul: Thank you very much and for coming up to visit.
Written & pics by Mark Jardine for Y&Y.
The Sports Boat UK National Championships are being held in Plymouth during Plymouth Regatta 15th-17th July.
It should be a great event with a large Sports boat fleet and will be very high profile. Perfect for the K6 and Viper class.
All the details are in the NOR and the event is heavily subsidised to make attending extremely cost effective see www.yacht-regatta.ppsa.org.uk
The ever popular Enterprise is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year!
Jack Holt, OBE (1912–1995) was a prolific designer of sailing dinghies. His pioneering designs of dinghies using plywood did much to popularise the sport of sailing in the period immediately following World War II.
Born in Hammersmith, London near the River Thames Holt designed more than 40 boats, many of which are listed below. He worked for many years with fellow sailing enthusiast and businessman Beecher Moore.
Jack Holt was awarded an OBE in 1979 for his services to sailing.
The first two Enterprises built were sailed from Dover to Calais both as a test and for advertising purposes. This feat was recreated on the Enterprise’s 50th anniversary, but this time the two boats were sailed both to France and back again.
the Enterprise remains as relevant as ever, offering tight tactical racing at modest cost with over 23,400 registered boats worldwide. The Rondar Raceboats model is built from the new interior mould, known as the Mark 3. Whether a Mark 3 or Mark 2 model, all Enterprises are built to the strict one design rules which control the external shape and weight of the Enterprise, which is still much the same as the first boats built 60 years ago. The Rondar Raceboats model features the new Mark 3 mould with self-draining epoxy hull.
The 2016 National Championships will be held at Brixham YC from 23-30 July where the class will celebrate its 60th anniversary in sparkling style.
Photo by Hyde Sails
The results on the water have been almost identical as last year with wins in almost all the events sailed.
The Oulton Broad Open was a very light and flukey affair, where boatspeed was one of the least important determinants of success! However we won fairly comfortably, but largely through winning the starts more often than not. We had decided to sail the grey boat 881 which we acquired a couple of years ago after Petticrows, the Dragon and Finn (and one of the prospective Squib!) builder had taken it in part exchange from Mike Budd after he had used it to win the Nationals in Abersoch.
Using this boat (now named ReHyderated) has been a difficult decision. Our other boat 105, has a fabulous record and has never let us down in respect of speed. Certainly in strong breezes we have felt unstoppable in her. We won the breezy race at last years nationals by a long way after leading from start to finish, she has always gone well downwind and is fitted out in a fairly complex but easy to use way which has been tailored to our sailing style and techniques.
However the keel has always rusted around the hull joint and we have got a bit sick of sanding the keel down for every event only to see the rust seeping through when hauled out a few days later. We know the only real solution is to remove the keel and shot blast and epoxy it… but with limited time available we kept looking at 881’s perfect hull and keel finish and succumbed to the temptation to swap ships. The only problem was that when we had used 881 for three events previously she had been slow!
We therefore decided we would rig her exactly as our tuning partner Malcolm Hutchings boat 819. Lady Penelope. Previously owned by back in 2000 and sailed by Nigel andSophie Haigh at the Weymouth Nationals to 6th place, Lady P has always gone well. Malcolm and Andy have had a lot of good results in her and have won the Inlandsand nearly won the Nationals as well as lots of other events. Malcolm can also be credited with the currently fashionable “lower barber hauler position” as well as sailing with more rig tension than most. They have had blistering pace in medium conditions with good acceleration and seem to be powered up quicker than most. Both attributes consistent with a more rigid rig and more powerful jib set-up.
We used 881 for the testing session with the new Rondar boat at Bradwell in December, where she was always quicker than the Rondar boat. But of course the question was she quick or was the Rondar boat just slow was left hanging. With hindsight we would have been better using Lady P to test the Rondar boat, that way the variable would only have been the performance of the Rondar boat (and the golden rule of any two boat testing is to only change one thing at a time!) The Rondar boat also had a very dodgy keel fitted (which by bizarre chance came from an old boat Jack had found on Ebay, we bought it as a “mule” for various development projects, then donated it to a sailing charity at Levington, where they took the keel off to use the boat for static training for the blind… the keel then ended up via Salty on the Rondar boat. Complete with the holes we had drilled through it to measure the thickness!)
So with a low performance keel on the Rondar boat and a higher mast step because of the self draining floor, we could see the Rondar boat could be made to go much faster in full production mode, especially with the rig refined to take account of the extra stiffness that was so obvious on the testing. But it left is none the wiser on the performance of 881 compared to our trusty 105.
So back to the results at Oulton Broad. Stuart Rix in Aquabat ran a consistent second and the Rondar boat sailed every well by Tim Riley came 4th but won a race… However our post event analysis suggested that we were never going too quick. Our result was more about boat handling and shifts than outright pace. We had also changed our mast too. The old Superspar on 105 had done a lot of miles. 881 came with a Z spar which we feel is too stiff and does not have the gust response of the SS. The new SS was stiffer than the old when we bend tested it (despite being the same spec!) but more bendy than the Z.
We had decided last year to recognise these different bend characteristics by offering two mainsail designs – 315s and 315z for the two masts. The s having slightly more luff curve than the z.
We sailed at Oulton with a z mainsail to see how it worked on our unexpectedly stiffer Superspar mast. The conclusion was that we were unsure!
So come the next event, Jack’s new fleet open at Mersea, we decided to stick with the 315 z mainsail and hope for enlightenment. With Jack sailing his own (old and unfashionable and theoretically ‘slow’) boat to victory in race one and 4th overall and Ian Keely and I lumbering around the course in mid fleet and securing our worst result in an event for years we had a shock on day one! Jack’s boat had (effectively) the rig and rudder off 105 and he certainly did not lack pace. 881 in comparison was dog slow…..why?
Day 2 of the Mersea event was a seperate race “around the cans” and Ian and I in 881 won it easily. After a tussle on the first two legs with Jack we pulled out a big lead and although caught up on the penultimate leg by Nick Tolhurst and Mel Titmus, who planed up to our transom on a big gust, we felt pretty happy with our boat speed.
The conclusion was that we had pushed the”tight rigging” concept too far. The jib was then too flat with too fine and entry. That made the boat unresponsive to gusts and just too difficult to sail. Was the mainsail perhaps too flat with the Superspar mast?
Onto the Gold Cup to find out!
Sailing at Burnham is a niche branch of the sport. Local knowledge of tides and depths plays a big part. The RCYC fleet is getting hotter and hotter and some now say represents the best in the country (except at Abersoch of course!) An 8 race event with two discards provides a real test of Squib sailing skills on windward/leeward courses.
With a much slacker rig set-up we were leading at the end of three races on day one and showing good pace in bursts, but the conditions were the shiftiest and flukiest we had ever sailed at in Burnham. Big differences in pressure and wind direction just a few yards away on day one gave no real clue about speed. The short courses and tide meant that starts usually had only one place to be. So we felt “lucky” to be winning going into day 2.
The five races on day 2 were in steadier, but still light conditions. What was apparent was that several boats had the pace to win if they won the start. Malcolm and Andy in Lady P won the first two races on day one, but could only manage best places of two 2nds on day 2. With an ambitious and OCS attempt at a port tack start in race 6 they could still have won with the second discard coming in if all 8 races were run.
Visitors Rolly Wilson in Bacchante II with Martin Harrison helming were always going really well. They won one race (literally by inches from us who just failed to overhaul them on the short spinnaker leg to the finish) and nearly won a couple of others. Martin was left reflecting on the difference in performance between his (heavy) boat 500 and the top -speed Bacchante – and also felt it highlighted the threat to the class of the potentially faster Rondar boat. To us it seems that none of the “old” pre- 165 boats, goes any faster than Bacchante. Rolly is a thoughtful and scientific sailor whose approach to speed (and tactics) is thorough and effective. Whoever he sails with at the nationals the Bacchante team are ones to watch. Their 3rd place overall was well deserved and possibly even a little harsh.
Micky Wright sailing 811 Spoof with Alex Porteous was 4th overall and won a race. His laid back approach suited the stressfull nature of the conditions and he always seemed in the hunt. His sails were not the latest Hyde designs and (dare we say it) it is possible there is more potential speed there with new sails from the latest cloth.
Robert Coyle and Mark Irwinski in 823 Humphrey was denied a probable win (as was Phil Aspinall and Howard Enkel in 72 Guy Fawkes) through course error on the outer loop trapezoid courses….but both these teams have great and consistent speed. Phil and Howie are often at the front these days and whereas they used to be seen as fast in the lighter conditions, they now seem to be quick across the range. Phil seems to be learning all the time what makes a Squib go well. There has to be an expectation that Robert will do well at Weymouth and Phil could spring a surprise.
The Rondar boat sailed by Squib dynasty member Jamie Mears, more normally seen at the very top of the 18 foot Skiff fleet, showed impressive starting skills (as was expected) and won a race after winning the start….he was often in the hunt, but probably lacked time in the boat. To get sailors like him in the class, just like at the Mersea open Lee Childs(OK National champ) stepped in for a guest appearance shows that the Squib has the appeal for good sailors… and raises the question of how the class attracts them. Jamieseemed to be less than enthused by the Rondar boat as the solution to that question!
Nick Tolhurst didn’t follow up his Mersea form with a comparable result but goes quick. Duncan Grindley and Simon Griffin both had their moments, Simon very nearly winning a race.
Stone SC sailor Neil Fulcher had his frustrations with Burnham sailing but on a couple of occasions won the start (as he regularly seem to do) and had good first half to a couple of races.
We had three firsts and three seconds, discarding two fourths. So we were winners relatively comfortably (in fact, like last year with Ian Keely crewing) we won with a race to spare. It was hard to say that we lacked speed. In fact we were buried several times but were able to extricate ourselves from mid fleet which was never easy. Conditions were exactly those that we would have thought were ones where we were vulnerable and yet at times we seemed to have speed to burn.
So we go to the Easterns with still some ideas on how to get more speed, but confident in 881 now. We want to experiment a bit more on setting the boat up in a way than enables us to change gear more quickly and easily. Top speed in a Squib (like all boats) is only achieved by adjusting sails, rig and technique to the variations in wind strength and wave height encountered in a race. At Burnham and Mersea the pressure differences were such that what was fast at one end of the course could be slow at the other. Also the tactical requirements between going low and fast or needing to squeeze into high mode only can be achieved if all the controls work well from both sides of the boat, sat in and hiking.
The variable of rig set-up is compromised by the rules that do not allow the standing rigging to be adjusted during racing and the unrestricted swinging spreaders. Which means you need to be on the right settings before the start and to be able to change easily in between races. We use fast pins on the shrouds and are experimenting with moving the height of the jib tack (like on an SB20) to adjust jib leach tension, rather than moving the jib sheets from the old “high” position to the “new” lower position.
We have also set our pole to launch from the starboard side to better facilitate a quick first hoist. There are clear benefits at the windward mark, but takes getting used to…Do we also stick with the 315z mainsail?
Can we fully evaluate these changes before and at Weymouth? We will see at Medway… at least we have some time to consider them because that hull and keel still look perfect!
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