DF65’s
Just like buses – you wait for ages, then 16 DF65 skippers come along to sail, a terrific turnout today for social racing despite missing some key players.
The usual course was used and the WNW wind direction meant the whole length of the lake had some pressure. No one elected to go paddling, so the existing line was used which was significantly starboard tack biased (and rather long!) of which more later. Neil Westbrook very kindly RO’d the whole morning and kept things moving along despite the large fleet.
Neil ran a couple of practice starts – a great idea – which confirmed that the pin was where to be so the starts were very busy with the expected group of boats all occupying the same bit of the lake. Neil called a couple of general’s and a number of individual recalls, but didn’t use the threatened black flag. It proved tricky to see individual sail numbers pre-start but, given the numbers, the starts seemed very fair overall.
There was a bit of left bias to the beat although that changed somewhat in the top half where, even though the wind direction was nearly straight down the lake, there was just enough West in it to make the top half of the beat and the approach to the top mark unpredictable. This made each beat and the approach to the top mark different, and lots of skippers made or lost a number of places here.
Paul emerged from all this with a string of firsts to win 4 out of 8 races and run out a clear winner. Mike Dsp only won one but was consistent enough to bag second just a couple of points clear of Clive, with Alan fourth. A number of skippers had to finish early for various reasons – John Brierly put in some top early results but then found his boat was leaking badly and having just replaced a lot of the electronics he opted to call a halt. Malcolm stopped early to do some boat maintenance, Mike Dsp missed the last race due to an RX battery failure, Andrew Potter suffered rig damage in a race 8 after Port/Starboard clash and Stuart also missed race 8 having posted some very good results.
An excellent days racing with many thanks again to Neil (“I like a good discard”) Westbrook for giving up his morning to RO, and to Dave and Malcolm for the results.
DF95’s
Following on from a great turnout of DF65’s in the morning there were 9 skippers on the start line for the DF95’s in the afternoon. Wind, whilst a little up and down, was still straight down the lake, allowing for the standard course to be used, with everyone on A rigs. Neil Westbrook took on RO duties again and he was quick to call out those who sought to get away early, and there were a few of them caught out over the afternoon.
Clive Warren also started slowly, but like Alan he got better as the afternoon wore on, with four podium positions in the last four races of the day including a last race win. He may well have threatened Alan for second overall if he’d hung on to 2nd in an earlier race, which went begging after tangling with a running boat when lying 2nd on the short beat to the finish
Charles Legg also picked up good points early on and was in contention most of the afternoon but was a a tad shy of boat speed at times. Steve Miller also showed that he is getting better, with a fourth in one race and also being upfront early on in a number of races, which will eventually become results at the line as he progresses.
Unfortunately the forecast was pretty spot on for direction with a breeze that was over the houses (WSW) and so could not decide which end to blow from at any time. Peter set a figure of 8 in an attempt to possibly produce two beats, a run and some reaching. Although we may well have done that, there were some legs where we did all three in the one leg! You definitely needed your wits about you to keep the boat moving.
Choice of rig was difficult as well with some A swing rigs having to be hurriedly changed by 4 of the six sailors before we had even started (leading to a good 10 minute delay) and a range of A & B conventional, plus a few different swing rigs graced the first start. Most rigs were fine at some point and so it was all about percentages as there were some strong gusts, but they rarely lasted longer than 10 seconds and so an A could mostly cope, but a B conventional was probably the right choice.
Alan Bennett, fresh from his RG65 Nationals win last weekend proved to be the boat to beat sporting a square topped B rig, chased hard by both son George and Peter Baldwin, who shared the podium places in the first five races before the break, with Peter in an A rig finally managing to pick up wins in Races 3 and 5. George was usually up there vying for second place with Peter in his new Ivy and picked up three 2nd’s in this set.
Alan W was struggling with his rig and so missed two races along with Dave, who finally made the start in Race 3 and picked up a 4th. Charles and Dave were both having trouble in rounding the marks on the far side which were over 40m away from the Control area and unfortunately often ended up to windward of the mark and so had to re-round.
After the break, Alan B continued to dominate with another 4 wins, with Peter picking up most of the seconds sometimes by just a half boat length from George at the finish line. George however finally got his just rewards with a great win in Race 7, with Alan W taking a close second as he powered through underneath Peter on the finish line.
Overall a “sort of” enjoyable if frustrating afternoon with typical WSW wind conditions that had probably backed to the South by the end and perhaps a different course might have proved more challenging. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? At least the sun was out and it didn’t seem too hot in the breeze.
Thanks to Paul Plested for most of the photos taken during a flying visit in the second session and to Neil Westbrook for acting as RO and keeping score.
On a day when a good part of the country was sweltering in 30C+ temperatures, Gautby Road today served up a very pleasant sunny day with the temperature only reaching 24C at 14:00. This was probably due to the great 4 to 6mph breeze coming off the sea and blowing straight down the lake for the 6 (well 7 for a while) competitors who were out racing this morning.
Peter started off well and took Race 1, with Dave Williams close behind, although they seemed to have their own wind and pulled well clear of the chasing bunch, with Stuart eventually taking 3rd. Peter led once again in Race 2, but a wrong choice at the Leeward gate saw both Alan and Stuart nip through and give Alan the win after an uncharacteristic 6th in the first race.
Peter then polished off most of the other races until Race 8 when he picked up a sunken object on the start line. Finally extricating himself after about three minutes, he dutifully went back to ensure that it didn’t stay in the course area and had to be rescued by Steve Miller putting the waders on!
This gave Alan another win to add to a series of mostly second places and second overall. Having had a great start to the day, Stuart picked up 7 points from a DNC in Race 5 after a “snowball” knot required retying or perhaps even re-stringing and a 5th, allowing Commodore Dave to take 3rd overall. Charles had a few decent results, but unfortunately lacked the consistency to figure higher in the placings overall.
We were joined temporarily by John Brierley testing out new electrics after problems at the Nationals and to be fair he did win each race that he sailed, but our scorer didn’t add him to the score sheet with 6 missing races. Thanks to Dave for producing the final scores and taking a few photos for illustrating the report.
It was a glorious sunny morning and the conditions made for some good sailing. The wind was blowing down the lake towards the club house in an West/NorthWast direction. The wind strength was estimated to be 6 – 8 knots. It did go light at times coupled with occasional strong puffs. There were plenty of shifts and headers to be had with all sailors benefiting and losing.
The first race commenced promptly at 10:15am under the stewardship of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook (thank you very much Dave and Neil). Skippers all had the “A” rig on which was perfect for the conditions.
The racing continued in the same vein, Peter, Clive, John and Stuart maintaining their good start to the morning’s racing, other skippers still searching for the right race setup.
Some boats seemed very attracted to the buoys with some skippers even hitting them twice just for good measure. Overall the racing did remain quite competitive as helms picked the shifts heading up to the top mark, sometimes inshore paid and other times offshore paid. You paid your money and took your chance.
In the main it turned out to be a very enjoyable morning’s sailing with Peter taking overall 1st, Clive 2nd and John 3rd – well done, some very consistent sailing from all three helms. Andy Mearns picked up a good 4th overall after a slow start.
Following on from the DF95’s in the morning, the IOM’s in the afternoon had very similar conditions, although the breeze was a little more right at times and the sun wasn’t as strong, making it feel cooler.
The four stalwarts started on the same course as the morning under the ever watchful eyes of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook.
We then took an early break for Clive to repair his boat and restarted on Race 6, in which Peter once again took the win, but Alan picked up the second having done a few rigging tweaks during the break. After also winning Race 7. Peter decided to handicap himself by starting at the gate 10m back from the start line. Combined with a number of tactical errors around the course, it proved to be a major handicap and by the finish he was still 20-30m back. However, it did allow Guy to get his first win and after discussion we reverted to starting together and we became setup for an excellent second half, with great close racing and after Alan took a well deserved win in Race 9, Guy had two further wins before Peter took the last race.
Although the wind had been a relatively steady 5 to 8 knots for most of the afternoon, for the last few races we started to see much bigger shifts and holes and it was difficult to judge where the wind might come from next. We certainly had some beats where we might track down the lake on port and next time we would be going in the same direction on Starboard.
As can be seen from the results below, Peter easily took the afternoon, with Guy sailing well and fast for second and Clive third. Thanks to Dave and Neil for acting as RO and Dave for the photos.
A small group of 6 sailors had a surprisingly good morning of sailing while those carrying out domestic chores, on holiday, still in bed etc etc missed out on some un-forecasted great conditions. I say un-forecasted because the forecast suggested a south westerly breeze which should be straight across the lake ….. and therefore pretty horrible. In reality it was more north westerly and straight down the lake towards the clubhouse, albeit with the usual Gautby Rd shifts, puffs and lulls which ensured that nobody could ever relax when at the front.
A+ rigs were selected which initially seemed a bit optimistic but proved to be correct with only a couple of puffs overpowering the unlucky ones downwind, who happened to be in the way.
The usual course was sailed, with no preferred way up the first beat apart from working the shifts and avoiding the lulls which became more prevalent towards the windward mark. Downwind was pretty straightforward while the leeward gate choice favoured the port rounding to the finish.
Alan came out top with 3 wins closely followed by Clive who also had 3 wins and was never out of the top 3, but obviously bettered by Alan who had more seconds. Dave beat Stuart for 3rd, on countback with 2 wins. Andrew was garbage suffering from some home boat tuning during the week that clearly didn’t work, getting caught in irons in the puffs too many times and a couple of unlucky races with a bag in the water and a wipeout downwind into the leeward mark while leading. Thanks to Dave for managing to take a few photos whilst trying to keep a straight course and also for putting the results together.
Six skippers got rigged for an afternoon of sun and sailing. Unfortunately the wind had eased from the morning DF65 session but the direction was similar with the wind swinging between North and West. A rig was the only choice. The same standard course was set as used in the morning. We were fortunate that Neil Westbrook popped down and volunteered to be our RO for the afternoon, and flexed his muscles on a couple of occasions to keep us in check.
It was great to see John Carlin on the water for the first time in quite a while and he didn’t hang around in race 1, showing that he hadn’t lost any of his touch by taking the win. Competition throughout the fleet was strong and 5 of the 6 helms had at least 1 race win, and this was demonstrated in the first 4 races with 4 different winners, John, Alan, Clive and Stuart. Only Steve missed out but did manage a third in race 3 before having to retire with rigging failure in race 4.
Clive then got into race mode and posted 2 firsts in races 5 and 6, before Andy found good boat speed to win race 7, meanwhile John continued his consistency posting 3 seconds whilst Alan picked up 2 thirds.
Sunny, T-shirt weather provided a good but tricky afternoon sailing. With the skill / luck, depending on your view, in picking the correct wind shift to tack on and which to leave could cost you dearly.
