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RG65 Social Racing #3 22/8/20

With a forecast breeze of nearly 20mph from the SW, everyone was surprised to see very little evidence of any breeze on the lake when they arrived for the 11:00 start. By the time for the first race had arrived, a gusty wind over the houses had appeared and a short course was set from a corner of the lake to the normal finish mark halfway up the lake and a 3 beat course sailed in trying conditions. Key to success was finding the breeze and tacking on the shifts rather than simple pressure changes.

Neil Westbrook took the win in races 1 and 3, with Peter Baldwin picking up the remaining wins during the morning session when 7 races were sailed before a break for lunch. Richard Robinson in the lone DF65 sailed the same course in his DF65 with an A+ rig and took some mid fleet places in the early races, but struggled to keep up with the RG65’s sporting their A swing rigs.

The fleet was joined by Brad Gibson for the afternoon session, who took the first 4 race wins before having to retire after transmitter power problems in race 12. This left Neil and Peter to fight over the remaining race wins, although Alan Watkinson picked up a win in Race 16 after Peter tried finishing early, taking Dave Williams the wrong side of the windward mark and with it a potential race win for him.

An enjoyable days sailing, mostly in A rig, but B rig for the last few races when the wind and gust strength picked up, finally finishing at 16:00 after 17 races were sailed. Peter took the day, Neil second and Alan third, although the end result may well have been different if Brad had sailed all 10 races in the afternoon.

  1. Peter Baldwin           63  Pocket Rocket    19 pts  9 wins
  2. Neil Westbrook        03  Pocket Rocket    28 pts  3 wins
  3. Dave Williams          33  Pocket Rocket     48 pts
  4. Alan Watkinson       23  Scurry                    49 pts  1 win
  5. Brad Gibson                9   Electronica          74 pts  4 wins
  6. Richard Robinson   01   DF65                      77 pts

Thanks once again to Bernie for the running the racing and keeping scores.  There is another DF/RG65 day of racing (for up to 13) next Saturday 29th August starting at 11:00.  If you are interested in sailing please contact Graham Elliott or Peter Baldwin.