After the heavy and persistent rain in the morning, it was easing up by the time rigging commenced for most sailors and then dry by the time racing started. Peter made some minor changes to the positions of buoys ready for the first race to start in a decent Top Suit breeze from the ESE, with significant shifts from E to SE accompanied by some decent gusts.
Bill Culshaw started the day with a good solid win in Race 1, before Martin Roberts took Race 2 and then Peter Baldwin Race 3. Martin won again in Race 4, Peter took Race 5 and Bill Race 6, giving an even split on wins going into an early break so that Martin could repair a broken shroud without delaying proceedings or anyone missing a race.
After the break, with shroud repaired and boat setup again, Martin took Races 7 and 8 before Peter gained wins in races 9 to 11. Bill unfortunately had transmitter problems for two races and so his challenge for the day ended by picking up two DNF’s. It was all to play for in the last race, which Martin won with a clear and unassailable lead. Peter got caught up with John Brierley on the final beat to the finish after John temporarily lost control whilst on port, leaving Bill to take second spot. This left Martin with the overall win and Peter in second one point behind, ruing the loss of second place. Bill still ended up third, able to discard his two DNF’s ahead of John who had a consistent afternoon, but with a win eluding him and just making the difference. A great afternoon sail with thanks to Bernie and Jack as usual with the sun putting in an appearance by 2pm just to top it all off.
Scoring footnote – it turns out that if the points had been tied, Peter and Martin could not have been separated on their counting races, so Martin would still have won overall by beating Peter in the last race.
- Martin Roberts 12 vanilla 18pts 5 wins
- Peter Baldwin 63 lintel mmx 19pts 5 wins
- Bill Culshaw 21 brit pop 27pts 2 wins
- John Brierley 84 brit pop 29pts
- Neil Westbrook 03 widget 52pts
- Alan Watkinson 23 brit pop 57pts
- Tre Joinville 94 lintel 58pts
- Mike Williamson 43 TS2 64pts
- Charles Legg 25 Rubix 80pts
After 12 races, photos courtesy of Dave Williams.
