DF65’s
There were just 8 brave souls who participated in the DF65 racing this morning. One additional sailor turned up and after a quick practice decided he would return home and get on with other things.
There was a light A+ breeze straight down the lake, but unfortunately it was a tough morning and your result was usually based on how you managed the build up of algae on the keel and rudder. The favoured way was to keep to the near bank and “dunk” your boat several times upwind and down to shed the algae. Deciding how often and where to “dunk” could determine the outcome as you needed to catch the shifts right, otherwise you might lose out to someone else who did get it right (by good planning or a bit of luck).
Paul and Peter were vying for top spot with Paul just gaining the most wins, although the last race was very tight and only a boat length separated them at the finish, with a sychronised tack off the bank 2m out from the finish. Unfortunately, Peter hadn’t capitalised on Paul’s RO duty earlier on when Neil took the win, but the overall result would still have gone to Paul who won the last race.
Although it was frustrating at times (Malcolm couldn’t stand the pressure and ended up a spectator after two races), racing was still close and the result could quite easily have gone a different way.
Post racing we celebrateda big “0” birthday for Clive with a Birthday cake very kindly provided by Clives’ sister Gill. Thanks go to Dave W and Peter for the photos and Paul for producing the results.
DF95’s
Before racing started we did take the time to embarrass Clive by singing happy birthday to him as well as enjoying some birthday cake that his sister, Gill, had brought over to celebrate with. He had also been busy on his birthday adding some wider”feet” to the clubhouse benches, so hopefully they will not topple over as easily.
As for the racing, with the wind virtually straight down the lake the usual windward mark, spreader and leeward gate was used. Normally with only a small fleet we would have self marshalled the start with first boat to finish scoring. However, as Gill had stayed the watch the racing she was quickly enrolled as PRO for the afternoon.
With only four boats the racing was very relaxed. In the first two races Phyl definitely had good boat speed off the line and was tough to catch. In race one Paul was slow in comparison, but after some tweaking to his new A rig, he did get his boat going well in the following races. Neil had some good starts and was in the mix throughout the afternoon, as was Clive who got the better of Paul going into the leeward mark holding on to the finish in race three. In the end, Paul counting three 1sts and a 2nd came out on top. With Clive and Neil tied on points, Neil took 2nd overall based on their results in the last race.
