c

DF65 & DF95 Social Racing 2025 – 21/5/25

DF65’s

Another lovely day at Gautby road with sunshine, blue sky, and a quite penetrating NWest or WNWesterly breeze blowing straight down the lake. Sailing Sec. PaulP had asked for an early start today to allow some time for a clean up after the 65’s, and another excellent turnout of 10 skippers were there with James and Phyl a tad late, missing the first few races

Neil “I like a good discard” very kindly agreed to RO the morning’s sailing, and got started promptly using the usual course. Gate and line worked well during the morning, with the line perhaps pin end biased but the gate paying off at different ends at different times.

Four different winners for the first four races showed that the beat and the gate had some big gains (and losses) to offer but as the morning’s racing progressed Peter’s consistency and speed moved him comfortably ahead of the pack despite winning only three of the ten races.

PaulP, Mike and Clive were 2nd, 3rd and 4th respectively, and James would definitely have been in the mix but had to include a DNS in his score.

Frustratingly the morning’s sailing was also affected by some weed and other hidden debris which snagged a number of boats on a completely random basis, and almost everyone suffered at some stage during the morning. The clean-up exercise after the 65’s seemed to help for the 95 racing though.

Another day of excellent racing, with five different winners, and some excellent boatspeed from Paul and Commodore Dave. Very nice to see Graham Elliot win a race with Dave’s boat as well. Many thanks to Neil for RO ing, and DaveW for doing the results which follow in detail below:

  1. Peter Baldwin                63  14pts  3x1st
  2. Paul Plested                  154  23pts  2x1st
  3. Mike De St Paer             35  25pts  1x1st
  4. Clive Warren                   53  28pts 1x1st
  5. James Douglas               73  34pts  3x1st
  6. Paul Little                        45  38pts
  7. Dave Williams                33  42pts
  8. Don MacKinnon          933  58pts
  9. David White                    94  66pts
  10. Phyl Fanning                550  68pts

Photo’s courtesy of Dave Williams

DF95’s

If anything, the wind was better for the 95’s and the 5 skippers who raced than it was for the 65’s in the morning, with a mid to top end A rig breeze straight down the lake and the sun was shining.  The standard course was used with windward mark to port, spreader and a leeward gate.  Neil Westbrook kindly offered to be RO for the afternoon (as well!) and, with quick turnarounds, managed to get 10 races in.
The first race was won by Clive Warren, who went on to have a good afternoon, with Peter Baldwin 2nd and Paul Plested 3rd.  These three also bagged the top 3 places in race 2, with Paul crossing the line first, followed by Clive then Peter.  Race 3 and Martin Whittingham-Jones, who had a good afternoon of racing with good starts, scored a 2nd to Clive.  Martin did the same again in race 4, finishing 2nd to Paul.   In race 5, the signs that Paul’s day was about to go downhill were there when, closing in on Clive at the line, he inexplicably luffed the wrong side of the finishing buoy, when a first place was likely.  He still managed to gybe round and just cross before a fast finishing Peter.
Race 6 and Paul led from the first mark until the final beat, when another misjudgement left him and Phyl Fanning locked together, with Phyl’s bow across Paul’s foredeck.  Phyl had been running on starboard at the time, with Paul on port!  Clive, who had got stuck on a mark on the first beat and was the length of the lake behind, realised that he could still bag 3rd if Paul and Phyl couldn’t untangle themselves quickly, which is exactly what he did.
In race 7 Paul managed to stay out of trouble finishing 2nd to Peter with Clive in third.  However, in race 8 Paul, on port, was clearly in two minds as to whether to lee bow or duck Peter on starboard.  He left it too late to do either and ended up tangled with bow and backstay snagged.  This gifted Clive a 1st and Martin a 2nd.  At this point Paul thought it wise to call it a day.

 

Oops!
Races 9 and 10 were carbon copy results, with Peter first, Clive 2nd and Martin 3rd.
As an afternoon goes, it was good racing with plenty of boat speed and close racing from all 5 skippers…just a little too close on a couple of occasions!  Clive came out top dog, closely followed by Peter and then Martin.
Thanks go to Neil for running the racing.