Prize Giving 2022
The end of the 2022 Fisherrow Yacht Club racing season was celebrated on Saturday November 12th with an informal supper and prize giving. Yacht Captain, Mark McClelland, introduced the presentation by saying that,
“2022 seemed to be a year of either too much or too little wind, but despite that it had been a successful season for many reasons especially as midweek sailing had been equally as popular as weekend sailing. It was also great to have many new members as well as the veterans taking part”.
David Banks in Swirley was overall Yacht winner for the year but also receiving trophies for Late Summer and Autumn, Riding of the Marches trophies and the RNLI shield. New to the racing fleet was Yacht Firecracker which won the Early Summer Yacht Series 2 Trophy. Firecracker is the first co-owned or syndicate boat in the club fleet; she is jointly owned and sailed by Max Blinkhorn, Paul Hay, Thoren Ferguson and Chris Askam.
Once all the yacht awards were given, Yacht Captain, Mark McClelland, told of the miscalculated circumstances where he went from being ahead of the fleet to getting becalmed in the Aberdour weekend muster. Mark explained
“The event began with a fun race on the Friday night: Sulumar winning emphatically after crewmate Stuart Macdonald insisted on removing about 2 tonnes of cruising paraphernalia just before the race. This was a momentous event as David Banks in Swirley was beaten into second place for once. On the return my boat crew were delighted by getting the best start and leading the fleet out. I took a view on the best tactics - we were looking good and then it went light and we needed to tack. However we had slipped behind an unseen island which was covered at high tide and couldn’t tack for another 10 minutes! Stuart McDonald said that I watch too many tactics videos.”
Dinghy racing is encouraged at Fisherrow by awarding newly qualified, Greenhorn and intermediate Silverhorn: Simon Talbot won overall in the Silverhorn class and Ellen Henderson-Dott in the Greenhorn class.
Dave Morrissey, winner overall of dinghy racing, returned to Musselburgh and sailing after a two year stint in Bristol, however, his top place was closely contested by Elliot Hurst, who is a new member to the club this year; Elliot, a New Zealander, already has long sailing pedigree. Elliot and Dave creamed off many of the dinghy prizes taking home an array of branded mugs and glasses as well as their trophies. Their success was not just due to their sailing skills both were doggedly undeterred by strong winds and would battle the elements that kept most other dinghy sailors on the beach looking on with both disbelief and admiration.
Sailing nearly always comes with tales of misadventure, many of which are, after the event, extremely funny. A double special award was given to Nils Bunefeld, not only did he receive the “Guid Trier” award for excellent effort and improvement in both his Laser dinghy and the club Kinsman, but he also was presented with the “Golden Duck” for taking a swim while helping to berth Yacht Sulumar during the regatta. Nils made the classic mistake of putting both hands on the harbour wall and both feet on deck thus finding his body being further and further stretched.
Sharing the Golden Duck misadventure award are Peter Dick and crew who were on club rescue duty during the Harbour Festival. A large crowd witnessed as they inadvertently attempted a buoyancy experiment which concluded that two fully grown men cannot both stand at the back of the club tender. They capsized into the water but the really funny part was when one bystander inquired whether this was part of the RNLI demonstration!