Urgent message for all keel boat members....


This is a plea to all members who have an interest in keeping the moorings vessel running and working thus reducing vastly the costs of maintaining moorings. 

Last year we had the boat out of the water in the autumn. Due to the poor weather this period extended to 90 days and still we were unable to complete all the tasks on the list. This year we have decided to get her ashore at the Academy on 24 June for three weeks on the basis that the weather should be drier . 

There are a number of important jobs to complete in that period which mainly centre around the prevention of corrosion to the hull. This will involve removing all the sacrificial woodwork on the outside of the hull and then welding up the exposed boltholes. The foredeck will be covered in ply to prevent ingress of water through the caulking.

Internally, there are areas that need grinding back to bare metal and preserving. This is all essential work to prolong the life of the hull.

Some of this work will be undertaken by contractors, but we will need other members to step forward and help out at various stages, as there will be a fair amount of grinding back and repainting.

Please be supportive of this project – running Grafter ourselves saves the club about £700 - £800 per day on moorings work. Without her we would all be paying substantially more for the privilege of mooring at Castle Cove.

If you can spare us a time of half a day or more please contact Malcolm Spicer 01305 782125


Volunteers needed for Weymouth Dinghy Regatta...



The dinghy regatta is fast approaching on 13 & 14 July and we are in need of all manner of volunteers to ensure its smooth running!


Keel boat owners help would be much appreciated, for one or both days, on shore, on the water or making cakes. Please email Paul Robbins or Richard White to let us know, but we do need your help!


Many thanks



Paul Robbins paul14315@hotmail.co.uk

Richard White richard@azurelogo.co.uk




Handicap Vote time...


Shortly we'll be taking a vote on which way we'd like to go with our handicap/scoring system. In order to help you decide you can see below what the results would have been if we had run the last series under NHC. Obviously we're not able to offer you IRC or VPRS result comparisons without measuring all the boats.

Your options are:

  • PY - You already know about (but this can only be a short term option)
  • NHC - see below
  • IRC - Proven but relatively expensive measurement based system
  • VPRS -  Newish but inexpensive measurement based system

We are not currently aware of any other viable options.

The RYA are recommending clubs use a combination of NHC and IRC. As NHC only works for a series of races (rather than an individual event) an additional method is needed for standalone and other events.  If we adopt NHC we will have to select an additional scoring system to run alongside it.  If we consider IRC to be too expensive we could instead dual score against VPRS. 

If you're not familiar with NHC it starts with a published base number calculated from known data for each class of boat. It uses average measurements for each class so all boats of the same type start with the same base number.

It's a golf style handicap changing after each race to bring the fleet closer together. Depending on your point of view you might think this is a good thing, or you might just feel that the better you sail the more you get hammered. Whatever you point of view it will become progressively more difficult for the lead boats to maintain their positions. At the end of the series each boat's handicap is re-calibrated to somewhere between it's base number and it's final number in the series.

The 'NHC Results' tab above shows what would have happened if we were scoring our evening races under NHC - to see the handicaps working look at the individual race results - there is a column showing each boat's handicap starting the event and another showing what it will be in the next one.
As mentioned above we are not able to offer you IRC or VPRS result comparisons without measuring all the boats but that's really immaterial anyway - we're not publishing the NHC results so you can decide if you would do better or worse, just to show you how it would work in practice. The decision you have to make is whether you'd prefer a purely measurement based system (such as IRC/VPRS) or a personal performance handicap system (NHC). 

For more information on NHC go www.rya.org.uk/racing/Pages/NHC.aspx

for VPRS go to www.vprs.org

and for IRC go to www.ircrating.org



Gary Warr

Z Class Captain