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DF65 Social Racing 2024 – 9/10/24

Flying towards the finish

With a Northerly forecast for today, the racing was never going to be great, but we did manage to complete eight races befiore stopping ready for the pre-AGM scheduled for 13:00.

Peter donned the waders to tweak the course, moving the start line and gate to the near bank and we used the outer start line mark as the windward mark and we ready to start at 11:00 in some light rain and a light breeze from a generally Northerly direction with plenty of shifts back and forth such that keeping the boat moving was the key skill today.

Peter had a good lead in race one, but had misunderstood the course as set out by Dave, missed out the spreader and thus scored an NSC instead of a win.  This gifted Paul Plested the win, although for a long while it looked very much like Alan’s race.  Andrew Potter then aced races two and three, before Peter won four of the next 5 races, with Andrew picking up another win whilst Peter was RO.  Although not picking up wins, there were good performances across the fleet with some very close finishes, with Paul P, Alan, Paul L, John and Dave all being well placed in at least one race.

The day was characterised by some very wierd wind conditions with boats occasionally seeing the wind going around in circles, before steadying again 5 seconds later to its original direction.  The wind was also cruel to some leaders as the fleet caught up or even overtook them downwind.  We had more than one race with 5 or 6 boats all trying to fit through the gate at the same time; no contacts were made but it was a close run thing.

Thanks go to Dave Williams and Paul Plested for the photos.

  1. Peter Baldwin              63  7pts  4 wins
  2. Andrew Potter           194  8pts  3 wins
  3. Paul Plested                154 15pts  1 win
  4. Alan Watkinson        373  15pts
  5. Paul Little                      45  25pts
  6. Dave Williams              33  31pts
  7. John Carlin                     11  32pts
  8. Frans King                     95  36pts
  9. Richard Walker            39  37pts
  10. Simon Bates                  69  43pts
  11. David White                   94  48pts