DF65’s
The forecast NE breeze, today, had luckily swung round to a more N/NW direction ensuring the wind was pretty much down the lake with only the odd puff now and then from a more NE direction, which allowed those on the right side of the beats to pick up places.
A+ rigs were selected and despite some reasonably strong puffs they didn’t cause too much carnage downwind.
Starting at the clubhouse end of the lake we sailed to the farthest mark for a port rounding then back downwind through the gate and up to the finish. Start line lulls in the wind provided chaos in a couple of starts otherwise the racing was close with the usual opportunities to make up places if you got the shifts right or lose places if you didn’t
John won convincingly with 5 race wins despite the best efforts of a couple of competitors to slow him down. The next places were very tight with Simon in second on countback and Andrew in third
- 11 John Carlin 13pts 5 wins
- 69 Simon Bates 22pts 2 wins
- 194 Andrew Potter 22pts 1 win
- 53 Clive Warren 23pts 23pts 2 wins
- 03 Neil Westbrook 23pts
- 233 Dave Williams 32pts
- 373 Alan Watkinson 37pts
- 00 Dave Howard 52pts
- 95 Frans King 53pts
- 829 Sally Collings 54pts
- 80 John Beech 57pts
- 45 Paul Little 60pts
- 39 Richard Walker 66pts
DF95’s
The sun was shinning and a good north westerly breeze welcomed the 9 skippers who turned up for the afternoons racing, which was a good turnout with a number of regulars not available. The same course as the morning was set with the start line at the clubhouse end of the lake, single windward mark, then straight back to a gate with a beat back to the finish line. The choice of rig for the was A, although a brisk walk was required to keep up with the boats downwind and the breeze meant that shifts rather than holes was the main problem facing the helms. The morning 65 racing had problems with the main starting system and the back up was unavailable so Paul Little used an app on his phone to get us underway. As it turned out Paul can’t multi-task so after 3 races stopped sailing to be our RO for the rest of the day, our thanks go to Paul for this gesture.
9 races were sailed with Clive coming out of the blocks with 3 straight wins, before Alan took the fourth race, after bagging 2 seconds. Neil was also consistent with a couple of second and third places. There were also some interesting individual battles happening throughout the fleet, with Dave, John B and Frans fighting it out in the middle order. The second half of the racing Alan and Clive both taking another 2 wins each with Neil getting a win as well. The battle in the middle fleet was also hotting up and saw John B taking a second and 2 thirds and Frans finally finding that bit of extra speed taking 2 seconds. All in all, a great afternoon for sailing.
Results after 9 races with 2 discards
1. Clive Warren 10pts 5 wins
2. Neil Westbrook 19pts 1 win
3. Alan Watkinson 20pts 3 wins
4. John Beech 24pts
5. Frans King 28pts
6. Dave Howard 32pts
7. Malcolm Harvey 43pts
8. Martin Whittingham-Jones – retired after 3 races
9. Paul Little – retired to be RO
