Well, Charles was right, it was indeed a 2nd suit wind, having arrived earlier than most Charles rigged his boat with 2nd suit but everyone else opted for top suit so Charles followed suit and changed up. The wind was trying to come from Gautby Road but it was all about the strength of the gusts that could come from anywhere from Gautby Road to the factories.
After the first race and not one boat managing to survive the gusts we took a fleet decision to all change down to 2nd suit, our PRO for the day, Dave Williams gave us 15 minutes to do so and this was indeed just enough time.
The racing at the front of the fleet was nip and tuck for the first 3 races with Darin, Martin and Graham swapping places but after race 4 it was Graham that began to make to make his move, winning races 4 and 5 with Darin slipping out of the top 3 for these 2 races.
7 races before a short break and a cup of tea supplied by the ever present Jack and back out on the water for race 8. Andrea had now blown the cobwebs off and getting to grips with her chartered BritPOP! and her results showed this with podium finishes in all but one race in races 5 through to 10.
A challenging and thoroughly enjoyable afternoons racing with 12 races completed and many thanks to Dave Williams for starting and finishing us (and taking a couple of photos), Jack for making the tea (great tea maker but at 92yrs old he has had plenty of practice) and Martin who put the waders on to move a few buoys and give us a great start line.
Good luck to all Birkenhead skippers that make the journey up to Loch Winnoch for next weekends IOM National Championships.
!st Graham Elliott 13points BritPOP! 7 race wins
2nd Darin Ballington 22points BritPOP! 3 race wins
3rd Martin Roberts 24points Vanilla 2 race wins
4th Andrea Roberts 39points BritPOP!
5th Alan Watkinson 49points BritPOP!
6th Graham Birkett 51points Widget
7th Charles Legg 75points K2
