A fantastic day for weather and sailing, the wind blew from the ESE (down the lake from Gautby Road) with a strength of 5-10 knots. This was the first club race with this wind direction since full tree removal and it was very different sailing than we had all got used to when the trees would deflect the wind. The shifts were still predictably unpredictable though and a challenge to all.
To stay within the Covid 19 guidelines the clubhouse was only open for the toilet and only 6 skippers allowed to sail. We did agree to allow skippers to walk the bank for racing as long as social distancing was observed by all, and it was.
We had a 2.30pm start, which will be changed to 2pm for the next race and we managed 8 races with a quick 10 minute break in the middle. The racing was extremely competitive, as always at Birkenhead, and walking the bank did help to make it competitive. It was Martin Roberts sailing his Widget who led the field at tea break, with no actual race win but a very consistent set of results. After the break it was Bill Culshaw (Britpop), Brad Gibson (Red Wine) and Graham Elliott (Widget) who began the slow process of overhauling Martin, although as usual no easy task here. Mention must also go to Andrew Peter (Vickers) who sailed extremely well and led the fleet to the windward mark in several races and gaining a 2nd place in the last race.
Race winners for the day were, Peter Baldwin (Lintel MMX), Brad Gibson and Graham Elliott.
Any club sailors that wish to sail their IOM over the next 2 weekends, please drop an email to Graham (elliottyachts@hotmail.co.uk).
This was an afternoon of informal racing, but we did keep the scores and the final results ended up as follows after 8 races and two discards:
- Graham Elliott 27 10pts
- Brad Gibson 2 13pts
- Martin Roberts 55 16pts
- Bill Culshaw 21 17pts
- Peter Baldwin 63 21pts
- Andrew Peter 66 27pts
