A lovely day at Gautby road for the first DF65 social racing day of 2025 – blue sky and sun but alas almost no wind – and an excellent turnout of twelve racers. All the ice from last week had disappeared leaving a large armchair in the lake just below the start area.
Armchair? Why was it there we might ask…..armchair ice curling practice? / it seemed a good idea at the time? / why? – answers on a postcard please.
Having decided not to sail all the races John Carlin very kindly went paddling and retrieved it, assisted by Paul Little (who very sensibly stayed on the bank to supervise) but John reported that there is more debris in that area which will need to be removed as soon as practicable.
Back to the sailing which looked unlikely when we all arrived as there was hardly a breath of wind. A very, very light S.Easterly breeze did come in, but all of the mornings sailing was a real dead slow and stop drifting match.
Dave set a short course using the start line which was good for the wind direction, the finish buoy as a windward mark, the outer start mark as a leeward mark and then back to the usual finish line. Races were taking more than 15 minutes on this course giving an indication of just how light conditions were.
Having said all this the racing was really very good with four different winners for the four races completed, with the first three boats covered by one point as shown below. Neil sailed very well having missed the first race and his 1,2,2 results were good enough to win from Paul P who in turn beat Mikedsp on countback.
After four races the general consensus was that enough was enough, and a finish was called. Thanks to Dave for ROing (and being chief photographer) and, as always, for doing the results, and finally thanks again to John and Paul L for removing the lake debris.
- Neil Westbrook 5 pts 1 win
- Paul Plested 6 pts 1 win (ahead on countback)
- Mike de St Paer 6 pts 1 win
- Clive Warren 10 pts 1 win
- Charles Legg 14 pts
- Alan Watkinson 16 pts
- Richard Walker 16 pts (ahead on countback)
- Frans King 21 pts
- David White 23 pts
- Malcolm Harvey 30 pts (ahead on countback)
- John Carlin 30 pts (rtd after R1)
- Paul Little 39 pts
