Fairlie Yacht Club

18/10/2024

03/09/2024

The Scottish Two Handed Race is the final event in the Largs Regatta Festival 2024 and this year’s event was run in very contrasting conditions to last week where there was almost too much wind (The Round Cumbraes Race was cancelled). One week later, on the last day of Meteorological Summer, the sun and warm temperatures appeared after a long wet month, but with the heat and high pressure came a complete absence of breeze for most of the day until a gusty 30 knot easterly filled in during darkness creating some challenging conditions after an arduous day ghosting on the tide.

For those racing around The Isle of Arran on a course of 80 miles it was never going to be plain sailing. A strong ebb tide and zephyrs of breeze did nothing to help the 12 strong fleet pass between the Cumbrae Islands and head to Arran, it was not until early evening that the leaders started to pull away from Lochranza and head down Kilbrannan Sound. The fresh easterly filled in after midnight bringing the first boats back across the line at 0612, with only 20 seconds separating Toucan (D Smith) and Samurai J (A MacLeod), with Samurai clinching the Viking Sword Trophy on corrected time by 20 minutes. 5 eventually retired, and despite their best efforts Shearwater (G Wilson) could not make the finish time and crossed only 10 minutes after the 9am cut off time – a cruel result after so much racing.

In the shorter 40 mile round Holy Island races the fleet struggled to get past Little Cumbrae and only a strong ebb tide moved them south towards the turning mark of Holy Island. It was a painful run downwind and an extremely slow drift into Lamlash Bay before rounding and finally getting the advantage of the growing easterly breeze for the return leg. There were several retirals throughout the afternoon with the first boats finishing after 1am. James Jamieson’s Clancy was the clear winner of Class 2, with Paul Cook’s Doris in Class 3. The classic Swan, Reindeer, was the only finisher in Class 5 (restricted sail) as was in Class 6 (restricted sail) veterans of the event Ian Nicolson and Clive Reeves with St Bridget.

Special prizes were awarded to Toucan (Dan Smith and Ross Hepburn) for being first boat home around Arran, to St Bridget (Ian Nicolson and Clive Reeves) for best performance by highest aggregate age of 174 years, and to Reindeer for best performance by a family crew.

Thanks were given to generous event sponsors, Arran Malt whisky, and to Saturn Sails for their overall sponsorship of Largs Regatta Festival. Race officer Pete Wright was also praised for his unstinting commitment to the event and for staying up all night to record finish times and be a welcoming face to returning sailors.

For full results see www.largsregattafestival.com

Photo credit Marc Turner and Carolyn Elder

18/07/2024

The start of the Fairlie Yacht Club yacht race tonight 😀

18/07/2024

💛🩷 🥳 ENTRY NOW OPEN !!! 🥳🩷💛

Largs Regatta Festival:
Open to everyone
Racers
Non-racers
Motor vessels
Families
Shore side fun
Charity events
Great food
Live bands

Go to our webpage to enter and check what's on! ↙️

largsregattafestival.com

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Saturn Sails

31/10/2023

14/09/2023

Fairlie Yacht Club’s 2023 season of musters and associated passage races finished last weekend with the Port Bannatyne muster and races.
A moderate southerly breeze on Saturday morning carried the racing fleet north from Largs to Skelmorlie Bank at a decent pace, then a fast fetch across to Toward Bank and beat to the Ascog Patches beacon before turning north to finish at Ardyne. In classic Clyde fashion, the substantial lead built by the faster boats soon evaporated as the wind died at Bogany and the tail enders carried a new breeze from the back of the fleet to save their handicap.
First in Class 1 was ‘Farr E Nuff’ and first in Class 4 (restricted sail) was ‘Fankle’.
Port Bannatyne Marina is busy these days, but they did a fantastic job shoehorning all of the Fairlie fleet into berths and rafting areas. Despite the light rain, members made their way to the Petanque Pistes for the annual Petanque championship in the early evening. In a hard-fought tournament, last year’s Champions, Calum and Jilly McPhee, successfully defended their title with a win over challengers Andy and Jacgui Taylor in the final.
Sundays return race only attracted three boats in Class 4 with ‘Fankle’ taking first place again, making them Series winners for 2023.
Cool Bandit ll was the Series winner in Class 1.

02/08/2023

Largs Regatta Festival 2023

14/07/2023

The second series of pursuit races at Kip concluded on Wednesday night with some close racing in challenging conditions. Martin Lacey’s ‘Waterjet’ took the honours on the night from Norman Cowie’s ‘Clyde Calypso’ and Ross Garman’s ‘Tantina 2’, resulting in a tie for the series between ‘Clyde Calypso’ and ‘Tantina 2’, both on 6 points. On count back. with 3 firsts to ‘Clyde Calypso’s 2, ‘Tantina’ won the series. Well done Ross!
Seven yachts took part in series 2. Series 3 starts on Wednesday 26 July. Racing is open to all, not just FYC members, and any Kip based yachts are welcome to join in.

14/07/2023

Twelve yachts were signed up for the race and cruise to Bangor on June 30. During the preceding days, a consistent forecast for strong winds, with gusts up to 40kn, resulted in half the fleet staying at home.
Four yachts departed a day early to miss the worst of the weather, but as it turned out, the two yachts which decided to race enjoyed a fast passage in moderate to fresh winds allowing a fetch or close reach most of the way.
Jack Meredith’s Swan 43 ‘Reindeer’ entered in Class 1 crossed the line at 0405 on Saturday morning with an elapsed time of 13hrs 5mins but was 25 mins behind Ian Macdonald’s Sunfast 37 ‘Artemis’, entered in Class 4, which finished at 0340 with an elapsed time of 12hr 40mins. A blistering pace!
With a corrected time of 10hrs 8mins, Ian was presented with the ‘If’ trophy for fastest passage.
Most of the crews made good use of the local facilities in Bangor, and also jumped on the train to visit the Titanic Exhibition in Belfast.
The club muster was hosted aboard ‘Breagha’ on Saturday to shelter from a blustery evening in the marina, followed by a brisk walk to the Royal Ulster Yacht Club for dinner.
Many thanks to our friends at Royal Ulster, who made us very welcome in their superb clubhouse and served us an excellent meal. We’ll be back!
Thanks also to Jim and Mandy McIlraith for donating the trophy, a half hull model of the 8mR ‘If’.

20/06/2023

Bangor Race and Muster – 30 June 2023
A new event for the club and certainly our longest passage race, departing Largs at 3pm on Friday 30 June, with a muster in Bangor Marina on the evening of Saturday 1st July, followed by dinner in the Royal Ulster Yacht Club.
The race is open to members of all RYA affiliated yacht clubs. Please contact [email protected] for details and an entry form.
We are also hoping to see a good number of cruising yachts joining us for the muster. You can make passage individually, or sign up for a cruise in company. It’s a good jumping off point for the annual West coast cruise, or a visit to the Titanic Exhibition

20/06/2023

In marked contrast to last year, the early season weather has been superb, allowing our members to enjoy almost a full programme of cruising and racing events. Just a couple of mid-week races were cancelled due to excessive wind, or none at all!
Musters to Holy Loch, Lamlash and Kames were well attended, with an early season Gin tasting and a visit to RNLI Largs Lifeboat Station proving popular.
Our Kames muster also generated over £700 as a donation from our generous members to the Ellen MacArthur Trust.
Fingers crossed that the weather holds for another couple of weeks, with our family oriented muster at Wreck Bay coming up, followed by a race (and muster) to Bangor NI at the end of the month.

12/01/2023

A Racing Rules Clinic by Craig Evans, RYA National Judge, Regional Race Officer and RYA(S) rules advisor will be presented on Thursday 26th January at Largs Sailing Club at 7pm.
Please email [email protected] if you are planning to come along, just so we can get a rough idea of numbers.
Donation of £3 cash on arrival, to include a hot scotch pie/sausage roll.
Bar will be open from 1830 hours, with beers, lagers, (non-alcoholic included!), soft drinks, crisps and snacks all available to purchase as usual.

12/01/2023

To celebrate the New Year, 20 hardy souls on four yachts took part in the annual FYC New Year’s Race outside Kip Marina on Monday 2nd July.
Blue skies and a gentle West South Westerly breeze of 3 to 6 knots helped keep the wind chill to a minimum with the local air temperature around 3 or 4 deg. at the start.
Two laps of a simple course from Kip to the Channel Mark ‘O’ kept everyone amused for an hour, with Breagha starting the first lap with genoa only, her mainsail frozen into the in-mast reefing. Clyde Calypso and Mo Bruadhial took full advantage, passing Breagha on the downwind leg. Dutch Courage had a more leisurely windward leg and never recovered, deciding to spend the rest of the afternoon practicing with their spinnaker.
On lap 2, probably assisted by the amount of hot air on board, Breagha’s main deployed, allowing her to return to the lead, but too late to save her handicap, with Mo Bruadhial taking the win from Clyde Calypso.