Frensham Pond's Esailing Club Championship taking place next Friday

Virtual Regatta © Virtual Regatta

As we approach a few weeks into lockdown, the club is gearing up for the club championships next Friday. The club has five main series running with Cadets, Teras, Sailaility, and two main handicap fleets. The Cadet and Tera fleets started the Esailing trend in the club running weekly racing and then the rest of the club joined in.

It is a little bit chaotic, especially to start with when we worked out we had around 30 boats trying to get into one race. We solved that by sailing in flights, which brings its own challenges of splitting the sailors into flights. Every race night there are the usual questions of I can't enter the race, who knows the code and my internet has failed. There is always a bit of banter before the start but as the gun goes Zoom falls silent as the fleet concentrates. As the penalties comes in there are many people apologising. Then there are the ones that are asking how to tack or expressing their dismay over hoisting the kite on the beat.

As the beat goes on discussion turns to the best shift to be on and those asking how you work out whether you are on a lift. The best on Wednesday was one sailor asking why the lay lines moved and others explaining that they do that in real life with the shifts. At the first top mark with a packed fleet sailors are trying to work out how to get through without a penalty and then the fleet discussing the interesting rule discussions Virtual Regatta turns up.

We have a wide variety of sailors joining the Monday and Wednesday racing from every class in the club. Ben and Sam Goult are not only helping to run the racing but are also definitely showing us the way to get round the course. The other youngsters of Megan Ferguson, Rebecca and Charlotte Videlo, Ralph Neville, Luke Anstey and Bee Nee are all going very fast. The GP14 fleet have a good showing with Ed White going quick when his internet works, with Paul Trubridge not far behind.

There is a boat battle in the BBFF boat with crew Tim Farnell-Watson usually getting the better of helm Bruce Craven. Our Commodore David Innes is also showing off his gaming skills solidly in the top 10. On a side note we must say thank-you to David for all his hard work at this difficult time especially as he only took on the job at the end of January. A voluntary rile that at this time is very challenging but we are very glad to have David at the helm.

The Craig family are also playing and it is about the only time that most of us can say we have beaten Nick in a race, but the issue is he plays a wild card and beating his son Adam is not easy. The Solo fleet are well represented. Mark Gillet is very quick and it is great to see Simon and Adrian Law battling it out. John Haine after a week is finally connected and leading the Grand Masters. The K class fleet is competitive with Iain Soars, Katrina Gilbert, Richard Harding, Sean Nee and Andy Shorrock the fastest of the fleet. Although according to Andy sailing a J70 very fast in real life doesn't help in eSailing. The Laser fleet is quick with the youngsters and Nick Betterly is holding his own.

Hopefully we will get real sailing soon but thanks to Virtual Regatta and the RYA for helping clubs getting on the water. Qualifying for the Club Championships is hotting up among all the series and it is going to be an exciting week.