From John Wells – Yeoman Sailor

Hi Daryl

I thought you might be interested to know that this has been 'my year'.
My first full year with the new mainsail on my Yeoman, and I have had very good results in our club racing and last weekend we won the '3 Bs' (inter club race on the Broads). I will certainly look to you when my Genoa needs replacing!

Thanks
John Wells

The Shetland Round Britain and Ireland Yacht Race 2010

Paradox - DazTri 30 Wins 2 handed Multihull Class
Drama Queen - DazCat1150 2nd
Suenos - DazCat 1195 4th

J.O.G Inshore Series Class 5

Laser 28 Moondog wins with 1 race still to go

J.O.G Offshore Championship 2010

The Fecamp Race
Class 5 Winner and SR de Fecamp Trophy Holder
Laser 28 Moondog – Peter and Andy Pickett.

British Classic Yacht Club Panerai Cowes Regatta

The Universal 8 Cup for the highest placed 8 Metre was won by ‘If’
Mainsail and Genoa supplied and built in our UK Loft.

June 27th 2010 Grand Soleil Trophy

Banks membrane race sails power Rosamarine 2 a Grand Soleil 46 to win the GS trophy 2010 with 4 first places in IRC Division and 3 First place in ORCi in a highly competitive 38 boat fleet – our congratulations to owner Riccardo Acernese and his crew.

Anthony Roberts – Farr 395 Cerulean Class 3
JOG Alderney June 11th 2010

As per usual we started to pay more attention to the weather than our day jobs from Monday.  The forecasts were all over the place so all we could prepare for was light winds from somewhere, which would eventually move to the North.
Arriving with plenty of time for the start the wind was not looking too promising for the fleet.  The tide was strong, the wind was weak and we had a long way to go.  Phil Hagen used his influence with the weather gods and managed to negotiate a small increase in pressure to about 10kts, which was enough to get us all away providing we tacked along the shallows.

Cerulean crossed the start later than we would have hoped, however we had a long way to go and plenty of pizza to see us through.  As is our usual pattern we struggled to find form in the first 30 minutes and made little ground on the fleet.  Cerulean is a light airs boat so being slow out of the blocks in light conditions was frustrating.  We finally got our trim right about half way to the Needles, got lucky with some pressure further offshore, which more than compensated for the last of the adverse tide, and were back amongst the bulk of the fleet by Hurst.
Once we reached Bridge buoy we decided to hoist out A3 reaching kite to get some power and accepted we’d have to sail further east than the fleet.  We were banking on the wind gradually veering as forecast, which would lift us back into the fleet - which was exactly what it did.  By about 02:00 we had the wind at 90 degrees and moved to our big kite which we held until we crossed the finish line.
Knowing the bulk of the race would be in a strong east flowing tide we biased our course to the west - as did the rest of the fleet.  Visibility was excellent and we made steady progress through the fleet.  The light airs forced us to make frequent gybes as we sailed hot angles in very shifty winds.  We saw both sides of the symmetric spinnaker fleet several times through the night.

By daylight we were well placed and could see Tearaway Too slightly aft of the beam but further east.  A close bunch of symmetrical boats (Cougar, S X Girl, Lickety Split and Substitute) looked like they were having a great race further to the west.  They had a better approach than us, albeit a few miles behind, so we gybed back to join them in making better use of the building east flowing tide.
As best we could tell we were at the front of the fleet but as the wind was filling from behind probably not as much as we needed.  We crossed the line as first boat into Alderney (a first for us), grabbed a mooring buoy and watched the rest of the fleet start to arrive.   After handicap correction we dropped to 5th - congratulations to S X Girl who won IRC 3 on corrected time as a double-handed crew.

We grabbed a quick lunch ashore then headed home to make sure we'd be through Hurst before the tide turned against us.  A close hauled spinnaker run had us back at the Bridge buoy just after 10pm and on the pontoon by 1am for a much needed rest.  Our only disappointment was we’d forgotten the tv aerial, the stereo was playing up and the new bbq had the wrong fitting - so our dreams of listening to the football with a bbq mid-channel came to nothing.  

Thank you to the race committee, fellow competitors and my crew.

Anthony

JOG Alderney Race 11th  June 2010

Peter Picket – Laser 28 Moondog
Class 5 1st Place
Winner of ‘The Alderney Trophy’

Line Honours – Jog Alderney race June 2010

From Anthony Roberts - Farr 395.

Hi Daryl,

You may recall you made an A3 for my Farr 395 a couple of months ago (yes the one we ripped in a bad drop after having only used it for 10 minutes).  Our goal was a dual purpose light airs reacher and a heavy airs runner.   We had our first chance to put it to the test last Friday night in our JOG Cowes Alderney race.

The winds were very light at about 7kts from the west south west but we took a chance and hoisted at Bridge buoy and headed south.  The spinnaker set perfectly and we had no problems holding it at around 50 degrees apparent.  We were the first boat to hoist which quickly started to pay off as we moved steady through the rest of the fleet which were still under white sails.  We were frequently able to match boat speed to wind speed.  Eventually the wind veered and we moved to our bigger kite
- but the first 2 hours with your kite is what gave us the biggest differential on the fleet.  We took line honours to Alderney (5th on corrected).

In the delivery home we worked your A3 a little harder to see what it could do and in 12kts true we were able to sail at 50 degrees making 8.5kts of boat speed.  This is about 1.5kts above our white sail target.

“First 31.7 Eauvation – Jason Corlett”
3rd in class Cork Week. * partial inventory

Laser 28 Moondog

JOG Inshore 4 races into series and 3 wins – Peter and Andy Pickett Laser 28 Moondog

INTERNATIONAL Success for BANKS SAILS

At this year's Capri ROLEX Sailing Week 2010
3 Banks Sails Owners win a prestigious Rolex Submariner Watch

1st in Mylius 48 Class - Vincenzo Addessi
1st in Comet Class - Alessandro Nespega
1st in X-41 Class - Pasquale Orofino
With 5 wins from 8 this is an outstanding result for Pasquale and Banks Sails

Tre Golfi Offshore to Naples

1st overall Beneteau First 50 SAPHIRA - Raffaele Archivolti

Our congratulations to Peter and Andy Picket on winning the RSYC double handed series Class 2, despite missing 2 races their 2008 Checkmate Pentex Sails Still had the edge, proving once again Banks Sails are the Driving force…

COOL British Moths!
Banks Sails have recently been working on some new generation British Moth sails with some spectacular results, Our 2009 mainsail is now pointing higher and sailing faster than ever before. Roger Witts well known British Moth sailor reports:
“As for the Polyflex Sail ….caused quite a stir at the Frampton Moth Open on Saturday !!!!
Many many comments …some disliked it but most thought it was “cool” and certainly different.
I thought it was great and the shape was really good…thanks to Terry and Daryl and all involved in making it”

“The sail worked great and I won the first race by almost 3 minutes, and two 3rds in the next two races to take 2nd overall in a high –calibre 21 Boat Fleet. Never tried the sail before I went out …it was straight up the Mast and Race !!!”

Roger Witts and Laura Honey sail numbers 871 and 700
Contact the loft for more information.

Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2009
Our congratulations to Mike and Francis McDonnell, on winning this year’s Race;

RIDIRE BAN, A Westerly Ocean 33 , of Tralee Bay sailing Club skippered by father and son team of Mike and Francis McDonnell and crew have won the Cruiser Class in the 320 mile offshore classic D2D race.

With the biggest entry of 37 boats the race was ran in record time with strong NE winds on the Irish Sea and along the South coast resulted in a wild downwind charge over most of the coast.

The race started in Dublin Bay on Sat. 6th June at 10.00 and Ridire Ban led the fleet on handicap to be first to at the Tuscar Rock of the Wexford coast. From there we headed West through the night towards the Fastnet Rock I50 miles away. At 03.00 just South of Conninbeg Buoy we blew out the heavy spinnaker in 35 knots of wind with 13 knots on the clock. As we hardened on to the wind with reefed main the South coast disappeared as we surfed along to reach Mizen Head by Sunday afternoon. Here the winds died and we waited 7 hours for a light NE to fill in to beat all the way up the West Coast staying outside all the rocks and islands until we passed the Skelligs at 02.00 on Monday morning. From here we had a hard beat to Dingle where we finished at 08.00 hours in 12th place overall and winning the Alice Shanahan Perpetual trophy for first place the Cruiser Class. As one of the smallest boats in the fleet we were more than happy with this result.

14.08.09
Cowes Week 2009 Winner

Ben Goodland posts a magnificent set of results to convincingly win the multihull class in this year's Cowes Regatta.

Ben attributes his speed to the D4 Carbon mainsail built by Banks Sails in 2006, despite trying other sailmakers Ben saw the light and sailed the complete regatta using his 3 year old mainsail, proof that Banks Sails are superior FAST and DURABLE.

Ben's more recent purchase was a replacement Carbon Membrane jib supplied this year, helping him with superior height and complementing our 3 year old D4 mainsail nicely.

29.07.09
Team G.O.S.H. and the 3 peaks race

"Having received a totally new set of sails provided by Banks Sails I was very impressed with the obvious high quality, attention to detail was flawless and the construction, whilst light, was seemingly bullet proof. The key to our success was the black Assymetric spinnaker. Its shape and structure enabled us to fly it in situations where all of the other boats around were still under normal headsail. It was also superb in the very light winds, especially when flown with the very light sheet as recommended.

The advice on IRC Ratings and subsequent performance was equally as impressive and fundamental to Team GOSH being ranked 2nd IRC team in the 2009 Three Peaks Yacht Race on their first outing.

The section of the race where the winds were the lightest was from Caernarfon to Whitehaven where we were the second fastest yacht over the water, beating several J’s (92, 105, 109, 120 and 122), a brand new Beneteau First 50, a 40.7 an A35, Reflex 38, HOD35 etc. Not bad for a 22 year old 31ft cruiser!

The quality of the sails was only surpassed by the customer service, advice and support given by Daryl and all at Banks Sails . It was a daunting task to equip the newly purchased boat with a quiver of sails that would deliver the performance and longevity that we required. We listened to the advice given and not once did we regret this, he and the team at Banks Sails made the whole process a pleasure.

I would avidly recommend Bank Sails in the future and thank everyone for their support."

Lt Huw Reynolds (Skipper) & Jez Bygraves (Owner)
‘Talisman’ First 305'

07.07.09
Marchwood Madness

Trevor Barry on his First 33.7 Hydra Wins the Evening Series 1, Race Fleet.

With 4 out of 6 races to count Trevor and his crew posted 3 1st places and a 3rd to convincingly win the first round of the Marchwood Yacht Club Evening series. Banks Sails are proud to have been chosen by Trevor as his sailmaker and wish him continued success in the future.

Trevor is setting a Main and Genoa made from HMT Twaron Membrane complete with taffetas giving him speed and durability for around the race course or Performance Cruising further afield.

01.07.09
More RTI2009 Successes: 1st place Sportsboat Rule Sonar

Andy Cassell, leads the way using our latest 2009 spinnaker design and his 2008 Main and Jib, to a convincing win in the Sonars.

30.06.09
1st Place in Classic Racing Yachts

Our congratulations to Brian Haugh, 1st place Classic Racing Yachts.

Brian recently took possession of 2 Dacron® Banks Race Headsails, and has used these to devastating effect in the RTI2009 race, in his Alan Buchanon designed E.A.O.D. that he has lovingly self restored.

Be it Modern Day Classics or state of the Art Grand Prix Yachts, Banks Sails The Driving Force are there for you...

23.06.09
Celebrations in Hondarribia

Will Claxton and Matthew Gill Winners of the Multihull division in the Royal Southampton's 540 Mile Biscay Challenge race.

Starting in the Solent on June 13th Will and Matt finished 10 hours ahead of their nearest rival after almost 4 days at sea. Our congratulations to the pair of them, sporting a new Membrane Jib, screecher and assymetric from Banks Sails, they powered away from the competition. Proving once again Banks sails are the Driving force...

14.05.09
Ben Goodland and Team Eberspacher win the RSYC Spring series 2009

Team Eberspacher

Still using his Banks Sails Membrane D4 Carbon/Technora sails supplied to Ben in 2006, Ben is still posting magnificent results, proof that Banks sails are THE DRIVING FORCE, fast and durable out of the bag and still going strong 3-years later.

In a thrilling 8 race series with 6 to count Ben and his crew racked up 4 bullets and 2 5th places to win a closely fought series by 1 point. Our congratulations to Team Eberspacher.

14.05.09
Drama Queen wins Plymouth - Falmouth - Fowey Race.

Drama Queen, the recently launched Dazcat 11.50 with Banks Membrane D4 HMT Twaron main and Genoa, has taken the honours in the Plymouth - Falmouth - Fowey Race.

Read the full race report

Our congratulations to Roger Challis and Colin May on their success this year in a predominately windy series. Banks Sails Wayfarer’s proven designs, fast and durable.

Colin May

Roger Challiss