DF65’s
North West breeze today blowing straight down the lake, or as near as, resulting in quite a popple on the water at the club end where the gate marks were situated. Quite cold on arrival and no one seemed keen to go for a wade, but the start line and the beat looked very fair, with a single windward mark but no spreader. This clearly meant that the leading pack had to navigate their way through the boats still on the beat, but this seemed to work well. In fact there were more boat to boat incidents elsewhere on the course as the some of the heavier gusts affected boat handling.
Initial thoughts of A rig changed quickly to B rig which proved to be the right choice over the morning. As always there were some flat spots and lulls, and the heavier gusts were just at the top end of B rig conditions but quite manageable.
Malcolm Harvey very kindly offered to RO the morning’s racing – thank you Malcolm – and Dave Williams stormed away to win the first race, followed by Mike who won the next two and Simon who won race 4.
Once again racing was much closer than the end results might suggest, with some big gains to be made – or lost – coming up from the gate to the finish depending on which gate mark was taken. Despite the strength of the breeze there were some significant shifts all through the mornings sailing making it a day to keep your competitors covered.
Mike was able to win 4 of the next 5 races to win overall, with Clive and Sally also winning races in another very competitive 10 races for the 65 fleet.
Thanks again to Malcolm for ROing, and to Malcolm and Dave for sorting out the results which were as follows:
- Mike de St Paer 10 pts 6 wins
- Simon Bates 37 pts 1 win
- Clive Warren 38 pts 1 win
- Andrew Potter 38.5 pts
- Dave Williams 45 pts 1 win
- Neil Westbrook 47 pts
- Alan Watkinson 48 pts
- John Beech 50 pts
- Dave Howard 51.5 pts
- Sally Collings 52 pts 1 win
- Paul Plested 53 pts
- Frans King 60 pts
DF95’s
11 skippers were treated to a great afternoon sail, the sun shone and took the edge off the north westerly breeze blowing down the lake from the non clubhouse end with a bit of bias from the industrial estate.
The choice of rig was B rig which turned out to be the right choice although it was top end and touching a C rig in some of the gusts. The wind was fairly steady but there were a few gusts that could catch the unaware helm out downwind, matched with a few shifts (not as many as usual) and it was a fabulous afternoon for 95 sailing.
The course was similar to the morning but the first mark was slightly further up the lake to make the course slightly longer. A mixture of 1 and 2 lap races were sailed with a total of 8 races completed. Normal afternoon format applied with self monitoring starts and first to finish taking note of the finishing positions.
Racing was as competitive as ever in the 95 fleet with 7 helms recording a top 3 place. Paul Little had an afternoon to forget with various boat and rig issues limiting him to only 2 finishes. John C took the honours in the opening race after a close tussle with Clive and Paul P, and the second race was more of the same with the finishing order reversed. Clive then took the next two with John B notching up a 3rd place in what was a consistent set of results hovering just outside the top 3. Paul P then got his second win, before Mike dSP finally got the hang of his new B rig finishing 1,2,1 in the last 3 races. Overall a great afternoon sailing in near perfect conditions for a B rig.
Final results
- Clive Warren 9pts 3 wins
- Paul Plested 15pts 1 win
- Mike De St Paer 18 pts 2 wins
- John Carlin 21pts 1 win
- John Beech 24pts
- Alan Watkinson 27pts
- Frans King 34pts
- Dave Howard 35pts
- Neil Westbrok 41pts
- Malcolm Harvey 50pts
- Paul Little 68pts
