If you are still sitting on the fence then hopefully the wind forecast for the coming weekend will persuade you….
You can find the entry form by clicking here.
Category: News Page 2 of 33
The D-Zero Class Association AGM will take place a Brixham Yacht Club on the 25th June 2022 at approximately 19:30 (after the Saturday evening meal).
AGM Agenda for this year:
1) Welcome
2) Apologies for Absence
3) Chairperson Report
4) Treasurer Report
5) Membership Report
6) Builder Report
7) Technical Report
8) Nationals venues going forward – next 3 years all booked in
9) AOB
Last years AGM minutes can be seen using this link (anyone with the link can read): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yd44sZkSWud26di9nVCNz_9WCMNIbsiqEIA7grKxigw/edit?usp=sharing
At last years AGM we agreed to survey the membership with regards to the length of the Nationals as some people has indicated a longer event might be popular. We have created a survey here, please complete it: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/ATFG2A/
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With less than two weeks to go to the 2022 D-Zero Nationals, supported by Barracuda Bay clothing, at Brixham YC its time for the Runners and Riders List, the most accurate prediction of “form” that will no doubt fuel a frenzy of on-line betting and office sweep stakes across the nation. Before you rush to place your bets, and get excited about Euro Lottery sized windfalls here’s the low down and options for spreading your risk.
Firstly you could look at the top of the entry list for guidance, which to me would have you risking your life savings on Paul Jefferies becoming our new National Champion, justly deserved after years of taking flak as class chairman, with Martin Latimer on the second step and “Tin Man” Dave Valentine one step down in third ……… Tim Weedon would make history by beating multiple national, european and world champion Nick Craig into fourth place. Am I on my second large whisky? …. toooo right I am. In your dreams guys ………
The fleet talent scouts, and Bet Fred stand-ins, have also been out looking to see who’s been sneaking in some pre-event training. Zippy had Liz Potter out at a winter European Training Camp (sailed in Aero’s which despite the heat didn’t melt!). Liz followed this up with a training regime that included a sortie to the POSH regatta, other intense sailing outings and even an outward bound style 60 mile white water canoeing epic – serious stuff …. Could this be Liz’s year? The Largs bunch, ever hopeful, have been training in all sorts of weather; looking good in the heavy stuff with their San Francisco rolls perfected Billy McCarlie and Martin Latimer are looking forward to finishing some windy races with their masts upright. Jon Bassett is fast and looking confident and after a 3rd in the recent Noble Largs SC One Design D-Zero Fleet just behind a very quick, but sometimes too enthusiastic Niel Ritchie, Jon could be a top 5 contender this year. What about the Stork you might ask; well he’s entered, fit and ready to fight – he flies!
With no Dan Holman and a few top names missing this year Niel Ritchie could be a good bet for a top three and David Valentine is keen to show his windy weather pace. In the light stuff Tim Weeden could do well and Paul Jefferies is also fresh from beating up the opposition at Hunts SC. If the cameras are out “Poster Boy” Southwell will turn up the wick he can’t resist the limelight!
So with the dreaming over lets take a deeper dive into the entry list see what form says about who’ll take this year’s silverware:
Odds on favourite has to be Nick Craig, beaten by COVID and Dan Holman last year. Nick has a record of winning numerous titles in various boats and recently took the D-One Gold Cup with 8 straight wins The smart money will be on Nick, but the odds won’t make you rich.
Who else could give Nick a fight …. Stork in the light stuff, Niel Ritchie in heavy weather, David Valentine (if he’s doctored enough of the new boats), Tom Southwell if there’s film rights on offer … who knows?
In the mid fleet the Liz Potter, Jon Cowper, Gordon Stewart, Billy McCarlie, Martin Latimer, Mick Green (rumoured to be running a new boat and new sail) will carry on their usual battle that they all enjoy be it at Nationals, Northerns or Opens ….. if points for “being there” bring people to the front who knows what surprises they might deal out.
So its all to play for ashore and afloat at Brixham on 24th-26th June, there’s no doubt regardless of who takes the top slots the winners will be the guys n girls of the D-Zero fleet who will no doubt have an epic event in an epic boat, fueled no doubt by a little epic socialising.
Watch this space for the real results
Roll of Honour – D-Zero National Champions
Dan Holman – 2015
Ian Morgan – 2016
George Cousins- 2017
Steve Bolland – 2018
Dan Holman- 2019
No Event – 2020
Dan Holman – 2021
Sure bet for MC Jock of the Day – David Valentine
Not at Brixham to defend his 2022 Nationals title – Dan Holman
Nick Craig, fresh from his D-One Gold Cup win – is it his year to take the D-Zero title too?
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The D-Zero Class Association AGM will take place on the 25th June 2022 @ 19:30 (approximately) at Brixham Yacht Club.
All D-Zero owners are invited to attend but only fully paid up Class Association members are entitled to vote.
An agenda will be published shortly, in the meantime if you have anything you would like to raise please submit it to the Class Chair by clicking here.
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Just a quick update as things have been fairly quiet for the last few weeks. 7
We are in talks with a potential sponsor for the nationals, hopefully things will progress and we will make an announce very soon. On that note if you have not got your entry in please do so as soon as you can, we arer working closely with Brixham to get everything as ogranised as possible. We do know a few people have got accommodation booked but have not yet entered so please do get them in to help us with the organisational side.
Now for some bad news. West Kirby Council have decided to start work on a new sea defence a week before the West Kirby Regatta. As part of this they have commandeered a large car park, part of the West Kirby SC dinghy park and part of the marine lake. Lix and Zippy have thought long and hard about this and feel it is best if this event drops out from being a supported event as the sailing window is now very small with the use of the marine lake and lack of car and boat parking. You are free to travel to the event but it will no longer count towards the travellers trophy. Liz and ZIppy hope to see you all next year as the works should have been completed by then and things will be back to normal.
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Mixed conditions for the Gill D-Zero Open Meeting at Grafham Water Sailing Club 14/15th May 2022
16th May 2022
Report by Colin Glover
Glorious sunshine but very little wind welcomed the 14 D-Zeros for the first day of the Gill D-Zero open at Grafham Water SC. The event was being shared with both the RS600s and the Streakers for their respective Inland championships.
Following the mid-morning briefing delivered by Principal Race Officer Peter Curtis, the fleets promptly left the shore to (slowly) make their way to the racetrack at the western end of the lake. Following a short wait for the shifty average wind direction to be calculated the race team got the event underway.
On the first beat David Valentine and Neil Washington went right and very quickly generated a good lead on the rest of the fleet. Neil decided to not ‘bang the corner’ and tacked to cover the rest of the fleet. David held his nerve and continued to go right and rounded the windward mark with a significant lead followed by Neil and Colin Glover in third. The first reach was light and the front boats from the D-Zero fleet caught up with Streakers (despite a 4 minute time advantage). Unfortunately for David he approached the second mark of the trapezoid course amongst the Streakers and suffered the consequences losing a significant portion of his lead. Down the first run Tom Southwell went low and also took a significant chunk back. Gordon Stewart also picked up a puff of wind and reeled in the front few boats. At the start of the second lap Neil had taken the lead followed by Colin, Gordon & Tom. This remained the order for the final lap with Neil pulling out a commanding lead on the next three boats. Unfortunately, the rest of the fleet got stuck in a hole at the second mark of the second lap with Ben Stevens eventually leading in the second pack of boats. With the wind dying, race officer Peter consulted with the fleet reps and quickly made the decision to abandon the rest of the days sailing.
Day 2 dawned with a much more favourable easterly wind forecast of 10 knots with gusts into the late teens. Once again the fleets headed out to the western end of the lake where the race team were waiting. The plan was to make up for previous days lack of wind by running four races. The race team promptly started the sequence and got the racing underway. John Aston from the home club sailed excellently, leading from the first mark, and back on-form following his uncharacteristic result in the previous days race. John was followed home by Colin and Gareth Farr from Stewartby Sailing Club, who joined the event for the seconds days racing.
Race 3 was once again started promptly and David Valentine cleared the windward mark in first place after John, Colin, Neil and Paul Murphy overstood the lay-line and ended up close reaching into the windward mark on port. To the amusement of those nearby Neil dropped his mainsheet on approach to the mark and fell out of his boat. He quickly clambered back on board and didn’t lose out too much. Gareth worked hard on the second reach of the first lap and took the lead from David. Tom Southwell had a fantastic final reach and Colin looked nervous as a significant chunk of distance was taken back. Final results were Gareth followed by David, Colin and Tom.
Race 4 was delayed while the race team amended the course to address a 20’ wind shift. Most participants welcomed this delay and the rest after the 18 knot gusts contended with in race 3. Race 4 got underway and Colin approached, and hit, the windward mark first and immediately did his penalty allowing Gareth and John to pass. At the beginning of the second beat John was leading but slightly misjudged a port starboard incident with Gareth and John conceded his penalty. Unfortunately John didn’t recover from this error and Colin, Neil and David took advantage. The final race of the weekend got underway and was initially led once again by John. However, at the start of the second lap John and Colin tacked immediately after rounding the leeward mark whilst Gareth, David and Tom went further wide, and benefited from a huge lift. Entering the final downwind leg of the event Gareth was leading followed by John and David. Neil and Tom displayed their usual rapid downwind speed and overtook David. Colin went hard right down the run, gybed and reached into the penultimate mark just beating the others. Final positions for race 5 were Gareth followed by John, Colin & Neil. A tired fleet sailed the final beat back to shore where the generous prize giving sponsored by Gill was held.
Overall results were Gareth Farr from Stewartby sailing club in first place followed by local Grafham Water SC sailors Colin Glover, Neil Washington and John Aston in second, third and fourth respectively.
Overall results
Sailed: 5, Discards: 1, To count: 4, Entries: 14, Scoring system: Appendix A
| Rank | Class | Sail_number | Helms_Name | Sailing_Club | Rating | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | Total | Nett |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | D-Zero | 18 | Gareth Farr | Stewartby Sailing Club | (15.0 DNC) | 3.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 21.0 | 6.0 | |
| 2nd | D-Zero | 351 | Colin Glover | Grafham Water Sailing Club | 2.0 | 2.0 | (3.0) | 2.0 | 3.0 | 12.0 | 9.0 | |
| 3rd | D-Zero | 71 | Neil Washington | Grafham Water Sailing Club | 1.0 | 4.0 | (5.0) | 3.0 | 4.0 | 17.0 | 12.0 | |
| 4th | D-Zero | 3 | John Aston | Grafham Water Sailing Club | (11.0) | 1.0 | 9.0 | 5.0 | 2.0 | 28.0 | 17.0 | |
| 5th | D-Zero | 66 | David Valentine | Emsworth Slipper Sailing Club | 6.0 | (9.0) | 2.0 | 4.0 | 6.0 | 27.0 | 18.0 | |
| 6th | D-Zero | 328 | Thomas Southwell | Lee on the Solent | 4.0 | 6.0 | 4.0 | (8.0) | 5.0 | 27.0 | 19.0 | |
| 7th | D-Zero | 7 | Richard Major | Grafham Water Sailing Club | 7.0 | 7.0 | 6.0 | 7.0 | (8.0) | 35.0 | 27.0 | |
| 8th | D-Zero | 181 | Gordon Stewart | NHEBSC | 3.0 | (11.0) | 8.0 | 9.0 | 9.0 | 40.0 | 29.0 | |
| 9th | D-Zero | 144 | James Williams-Mitchell | NA | 9.0 | 8.0 | (10.0) | 6.0 | 7.0 | 40.0 | 30.0 | |
| 10th | D-Zero | 218 | Paul Murphy | Grafham Water Sailing Club | 8.0 | 5.0 | 7.0 | (15.0 DNC) | 15.0 DNC | 50.0 | 35.0 | |
| 11th | D-Zero | 152 | Colin Clasper | Stewartby Sailing Club | (15.0 DNC) | 10.0 | 13.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 | 58.0 | 43.0 | |
| 12th | D-Zero | 8 | Joe Constable | Grafham Water Sailing Club | 10.0 | 12.0 | 11.0 | (15.0 DNC) | 15.0 DNC | 63.0 | 48.0 | |
| 13th | D-Zero | 203 | Chris Everitt | Yorkshire Dales SC | 12.0 | 13.0 | 12.0 | 11.0 | (15.0 DNC) | 63.0 | 48.0 | |
| 14th | D-Zero | 247 | Ben Stevens | Grafham Water Sailing Club | 5.0 | (15.0 DNC) | 15.0 DNC | 15.0 DNC | 15.0 DNC | 65.0 | 50.0 |
The D-Zero fleet would like to thank Grafham Water SC and the race team led by Peter Curtis for a fantastic weekend of D-Zeroing and to Gill for the generous sponsorship.
More photographs of the event can be viewed at the Grafham Water SC Photo Gallery
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The D-Zero Nationals at Brixham are rapidly approaching, as is the Early Bird entry deadline.
If you enter before 23:59 on the 30th April entry is a very reasonable £70, entries received after that are £85.
So save yourself a few quid in these times of increasing costs by getting your entry in before the early bird discount expires!
You can find out more by clicking here or jump straight to the entry form by clicking here.
The Class looks forward to seeing you all in Brixham for that Nationals from the 24th-26th June!
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Despite the forecast of light winds a small but perfectly formed fleet of 7 D-Zeros gathered at Bough Beech on the 2nd April for the start of the dzero.co.uk travellers series. With class poster boy Tom Southwell, winner (again) of the Winter Series attending he was clearly a target for the rest of the fleet.
As a new venue to the class and at an event shared with the Supernovas and Finns we were keen to put on a good show.
First order of the day was to locate the club, for those who hadn’t been before finding a pair of innocuous blue gates was the first order of the day. Rigging took place in a very sheltered area and, despite the sunshine, there was some trepidation as to whether we would get any racing in.
As launch time approached the entire surface of the lake was covered in breeze which was building nicely, full hiking upwind for most and easily planing on the offwind legs. We were second fleet of the 3 to go off so had a bit of an idea what the wind was doing from watch the Finns during the short (3 minute) start sequence. After a clean getaway we headed off upwind. It was clear that neither side was favoured with the fleet converging at the windward mark. Tom duly led us round but never really had much of a gap to the chasing pack until lap 3 when he and your roving reporter made a break for it. After a tacking duel up the final beat Tom took the gun followed by Paul with Tim completing the podium.
Race 2 was held back to back, the wind was holding nicely but was shifting around a lot with a few holes starting to appear to catch out the unwary. Tom and David decided to make an early break for it and built a lead up of over a leg at times. Paul managed to break away from the chasing pack pursued by local sailor Ian Patrick, using his local knowledge to good effect. Despite closing rapidly on the last lap Paul could not quite catch David, who took the gun, followed by Tom. Ian came home 4th nearly caught on the line by Jon.
As we lined up for race 3 everything was to play for. Any one of 3 sailors could take the win, it was winner takes all if any of them could seize the opportunity. After a lighting start Paul looked to have got the best of the fleet, but the wind gods decided to roll the dice causing an incident at the windward mark (more on the later). Despite that Paul round first, pursued by Tom. It looked like Paul was going to do a horizon job on the fleet until the wind gods rolled the dice again. This split the fleet massively, those who could stay in the wind and who were not quite so portly came charging through to the front. By the final lap it was Jon leading from Tim with Paul trying valiantly to keep up. At the line a happy Jon took the gun followed by Tim with Paul taking another 3rd (Mr consistency).
There was yet another twist in the tail though, following the incident at the windward mark a protest was lodged against Paul by David. Would this affect the results? We didn’t think so but the process needed to be followed through. After a short hearing the committee had made their decision. The protest was dismissed so the results stood. The 2 protagonists thanked the protest committee and duly shook hands and beer was promised at the nationals.
So Tom took the event counting 1,2, Tim was 2nd counting 3,2 and Paul was 3rd counting 2,3. It seems consistency didn’t pay quite so handsomely on the day!
Thanks to Bough Beech for hosting our first Open of the season, those who attended thoroughly enjoyed themselves and we will be back next year! Hopefully some of the interest at Bough Beech will have turned into more local boats by then with David fielding several enquiries.
Full results:
| Rank | Sail No | Helm | Club | R1 | R2 | R3 | Total | Nett |
| 1 | 328 | Tom Southwell | Lee on Solent | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 3 |
| 2 | 312 | Tim Weeden | Emsworth Slipper SC | 3 | 7 | 2 | 12 | 5 |
| 3 | 74 | Paul Jefferies | Hunts SC | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 5 |
| 4 | 42 | Jon Cowper | Hunts SC | 6 | 5 | 1 | 12 | 6 |
| 5 | 66 | David Valentine | Emsworth Slipper SC | 5 | 1 | 7 | 13 | 6 |
| 6 | 325 | Ian Patrick | Bough Beech SC | 7 | 4 | 5 | 16 | 9 |
| 7 | 55 | Steve Southall | Shoreham SC | 4 | 6 | 6 | 16 | 10 |
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The 2022 Open Meeting circuit kicks off this coming weekend with a new venue on the D-Zero circuit. With a fledgling D-Zero fleet and a very keen local sailor do be sure to make the trip and show them what a fantastic boat and fantastic people we have!
The event is also shared with the Finn and Supernova classes, a chance to really show the boat off against some of its peers!
Racing starts at 11:00 with 3 races scheduled and 2 to count. You can see the NoR and SIs on the Bough Beech website: http://www.boughbeechsc.org.uk/open-racing
We are aware of a few who are intending to travel so don’t sit on the fence, get your boat packed away and we will see you there!
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Here it is, entry to the event you have all been waiting for. Entry to the 2022 D-Zero National Championships is now open! You can jump direct to the entry form by clicking here.
Being held at Brixham Yacht Club 24th – 26th June 2022 we are hoping for warm weather and, more importantly, good winds!
Some important details you need to know:
Trailer Storage
Road Trailers cannot be kept in the dinghy park at Brixham Yacht Club. They can provide storage off site at a cost of £15/trailer for the duration of the event. Storage will be at the local Cricket Club. If you do not book road trailer storage you need to make arrangements to store your trailer offsite. There is no difference in charge between single and double trailers.
Car Parking
Car parking at the club is restricted to members only. There is a public car park opposite that has 24 hour parking and permits are available. The link to the car park information page is: https://www.torbay.gov.uk/roads/parking/car-parks/oxen-cove-cp/. You can see the permit options by clicking here: https://www.torbay.gov.uk/roads/parking/parking-permits/car-park-permits/, as there are no height restrictions those with camper vans may wish to take advantage.
Food!
Brixham are laying on fish and chips Friday night at a cost of £12/head. Saturday food is included for entrants with additional tickets available at a cost of £15/head, the menu can be found below:
Please book your food and make sure you let us know of any special dietry requirements.
Early Arrivals
Brixham have confirmed that people can arrive on the Thursday and stay to the Monday. If you wish to store your boat at the club for longer there is charge of £5/day outside of the Thursday to Monday event window.
There will also be an ad-hoc social/dinner on the Thursday for early arrivals.
