Captain’s Log October 2025

I am writing this shortly after returning from the Henri Lloyd Lymington weekend.  The results have already been reported elsewhere and I do not propose to repeat them other than to congratulate Javelin and Adelie on their perseverance on Sunday, and also the perseverance, of which many may not have been aware, of Martin and his team who remained on station in the start box until after both boats finished in the dark on Sunday evening.

Thanks are due to our President Peter Rutter for arranging an informal pontoon party on Saturday evening to thank Martin and Ruth for their efforts over the years and to present Martin with a Magnum of Champagne.  Martin will be retiring as our Secretary at the end of the year and the Lymington weekend was his last hurrah. It is rather sad that the last race should have been dogged by lack of wind with the majority of the fleet retiring.  I am sure that everyone would have much preferred a chaotic finish with ten spinnakers crossing the line within 90 seconds!

We did have a replacement Secretary lined up but sadly at the last moment he decided on an alternative post, so we are now looking for a suitable candidate.  If you are interested or know anyone who might be a suitable candidate details will be on social media and also in the yachting press. 

2025 has been another successful season for JOG.  Even though it was a Fastnet year which usual draws a number of our fleet we have still recorded record entries for many races.  Here are a few of the results and the statistics.

Offshore Series

Class 1 Mzungu 1st, Sanity 2nd,  RORC Griffin 3rd

Class 2 Jetpack 1st,  Boracic 2nd,  Purple Mist 3rd

Class 3  Sailfish 1st, Longue Pierre 2nd, With Alacrity 3rd

Double Handed Purple Mist 1st, Sanity 2nd, In Code 3rd

Total Number of Boats entering for one or more races 74

Largest entry Nautical Cloud Channel race 32

Smallest entry RORC ST Malo race 12

Inshore series

Class 1 Scream 2 1st, Dusty P 2nd, White Majic 3rd

Class 2 Bellino 1st, RORC Griffin 2nd, Hot Rats 3rd

Class 3 Javelin 1st, Jetpack 2nd, Frank4 3rd 

Class 4 Adelie 1st With Alacrity 2nd Sailfish 3rd

Double Handed Muzungu 1st, Joyride 2nd, Moondog 3rd

Total number of boats entering one or more races 146

Largest Entry Lewmar Lonely Tower race 93

Smallest entry One Sails Yarmouth weekend 38

The representation of Generation JOG in both series continues to grow and important to the clubs continued growth, the sponsorship provided by Henri Lloyd has ensured that we have been able to offer generous prizes to GenJOG participants.

These statistics are interesting, but they are also watched with interest by your Committee who look for any patterns which in turn may affect the make-up of the programme for future years.  For example, the Nautical Cloud Channel Race always used to be very popular but in recent years its popularity has declined, save that for the last two years the entries have increased, why is this and will it be sustained?  Last year the most popular offshore race was Deauville, this year there was a clash with a RORC Fastnet qualifying race which hit our entries.  Similarly, the Yarmouth weekend is usually one of our most popular events and this year’s reduced entry appears to have been the result of a clash with other events.  The Lonely Tower race has been one of the most popular events for a number of years.

Talking about the programme the provisional calendar for 2026 has been published and while provisional we do not anticipate any significant changes.  At the same time, we (or at least I) am already beginning to think about the programme for 2027 and we do welcome ideas from the membership.  Below I set out a few ideas, some of these I have heard on the grapevine, others are my own but either way it would be interesting to know if any of these ideas seem worthwhile pursuing.

1. Swap the Channel Race and Deauville Race.  The benefit of this is that the Channel Race would not have to be run close to the equinoctial spring tides and a time of year when life can be plagued by fickle winds, something that affected this race for the last two years, but would probably have less effect on a race into the Seine Bay.  However, both these races have considerable history, in addition the Deauville Race is a partnership with RSrnYC and RLYC backed up by some wonderful support from the Deauville YC.  Would a change like this do more damage than good?

2. Looking at our programme for late August/September, this is very crowded and perhaps we should try to move one of the races to June?

3. More and more Solent based boats including JOG members are doing the Dartmouth Regatta, should we look to see if we should arrange for one of our offshore races to be a feeder for the Dartmouth Regatta?

4. In recent years a number of our members have participated in the Tour Des Ports Manche, I think that this developed from an earlier event based around the ports of North Brittany which used (in the 1980s) to be supported by JOG.  This usually happens at the beginning of July and would probably clash with RORC St Malo which in the 1980s used to act as a feeder for the North Brittany event.  With the declining popularity of the St Malo race would it be worthwhile JOG considering linking up and possibly running a feeder race as part of the offshore series?

5. This is a possibly wild card suggestion, but it is increasingly clear that the Friday afternoon start for Offshore races seems to be losing popularity.  I suspect that this might be something to do with employers being a bit less flexibly about seeing their employees running away on Friday and coming back on Monday with matchsticks holding up their eyelids, something I used to do regularly when I first sailed with JOG.  Would people like a Channel Triangle event with two or three offshore races over a four or five day period?  This would necessitate some time off but would get three offshore races completed in a short time and perhaps leave more weekends for other events/family commitments. 

Don’t say that JOG stands still, our 75th season has come to an end we are intending to keep coming up with ideas to ensure a successful future.

Changing the subject a bit I thought it might be an idea to mention Sponsorship and our Sponsors.  We are very grateful to all our sponsors, the money they provide helps to keep our costs down and to fund most of our post-race parties, to say nothing of the special support that Henri Lloyd have given to the Generation JOG programme.  We try hard to do our own part and plug sponsors whenever we can.  As always we are looking for sponsors for the 2026 programme and in particular we would like someone to help us with JOG week.  Most of our sponsors tend to be linked to the Marine Industry but the connection is not essential, if you know anyone who runs a business that might benefit from some cheap extra exposure to an educated and probably influential audience please push them in our direction.  They will appear in our Notice of Race, on the Website and usually have a race or event named after them.

I have gone on for too long but must end by reminding you that we have our AGM on 19th November closely followed by our annual awards dinner at the Ocean Village Harbour Hotel on 22nd November. Details and tickets for the Awards Dinner are available in the MyJog area of the website, together with food choices. MDL have agreed , for a second time to sponsor our event with 15 free berths at Ocean Village if you want to save hotel fees and sleep aboard. First come first served!

Tony Tahourdin
Gunsmoke GBR6455R

PS If you want to contact me or comment it is best to do so by email to the club or direct to me, I am not a great fan of or contributor to social media.