Nineteen Skippers began to assemble at the club soon after 8am when the Commodore opened up. With a forecast SW breeze veering to WSW or W, it was a surprise to see a light SE breeze blowing down the lake from the clubhouse. Sailing Sec Paul P offered to don the waders and put some marks out for what we anticipated might be the right course by the time we started at 10:00, but with a option for a separate course should the SE breeze continue to blow.
Soon after 9, the SW/WSW breeze started to form and later on during the practice session, some strong gusts started to make their way down the course, which bode well for the start of racing.
After a short briefing by Paul, racing got underway for the 12 home skippers and seven visitors on time at 10:00 and the first or four planned four race sessions started in a decent A rig breeze diagonally across the lake. An angled start line typically had plenty of port bias in it, but what looked like the favoured end was sometimes becalmed and so not as favoured, although some boats did manage to make it pay off when starting there.
In the first four races, it was usually just Birkenhead boats who managed to lead the pack around with some visitors finding either the conditions or fleet management tough going at the beginning. Martin Roberts stamped his immediate authority on the fleet by winning the first race, with John Brierley and Peter Baldwin making up the podium. Peter then took his first win in a good run of four consecutive wins, with John B, Paul Middleton, Paul Plested, Alan Watkinson and Martin R all making the podium.
After a drinks break, John B took two wins (Peter took the first) and Martin had one win, with the podium places going to most of those mentioned earlier, with the notable mention of visitor Martin Brennan (Dovestone SC) who, having led for most of Race 8, was unfortunately overtaken by Martin R close to the finish.
Over lunch the morning scores were totted up and Peter was leading on eight points, with Martin and John B tied on 12 and Martin just holding onto second. The afternoon session started well with the breeze holding up from the West, but with rain clouds building around us. We completed a further four races by 14:10 and were looking good to complete 16 by the 16:00 last race start time.
Race wins were shared by John B, Martin and Peter (2), with the podium places taken by the same three plus John Carlin and Alan, With Martin Brennan and David McKee (Dovestone SC) placing well, but not quite making it onto the podium. There were some very close finishes now with most sailors getting to grips with the conditions leading to some tricky times for the finishing team of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook.
The final session started with a dropping breeze which was also shifting back to WSW with light rain in the air, which increased in intensity during race two. Finally, during the third race, although starting in a very light breeze, it suddenly faded and there was very slow progress down the run (as set), which was anywhere from a run, to reach to a beat over the 10 minutes that we took to travel the 100m. Unfortunately, the rules do not allow for course shortening and so everyone had to stick it out to the bitter end and a race duration of 30 minutes or more. With the lake glassy from a lack of wind, there were no complaints about a slightly early finish with just 15 races completed. Peter took two of the final wins and Martin one, with David McKee picking up a second, with the other podium spots being taken by the lead three of Peter, Martin and John B. Visitors David McKee, Martin Brennan and Paul Middleton all had a fourth place, just misisng out on a podium spot. Full results below, but the prize winners were Peter Baldwin, Martin Roberts, John Brierley, Paul Plested and Paul Middleton who all picked up a well deserved bottle of wine.
Thanks were given to the Race team of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook and the ladies running the galley all day providing hot drinks and keeping us fed with home made biscuits and flapjack.
It all happens again next week when the club hold the annual Strebor IOM Race on Saturday 8th November – entry via this link.
