DF65’s
An excellent turnout of eleven 65s on a mild, overcast, and quite gusty day. Initial “tuners up” went out on A+, but it quickly became clear that A would be needed. This was the start of an interesting day of three halves, as more or less as soon as racing started some hefty gusts came through suggesting a further change to B rig.
To avoid loss of time the first three races were sailed in conditions which were really over the top for A rig, and a consensus was to stop again and go for B rig. The wind direction was South to South East as forecast which meant the top clubhouse corner was its usual tricky self, but the deciding factor as usual was the gust strength which made downwind sailing a complete lottery.
A quick change to B rig, and somewhat in the running order. Mikedsp had been on the pace on A rig, but successfully found the slow buttons on B rig, while PaulP, John C, James, Clive and PaulL all showed excellent boatspeed resulting in some very close racing. Unfortunately, this had eliminated Andy Mearns as he had only brought A+ but he very kindly agreed to stay and RO for the morning.
Earlier on it had seemed to pay to get the bow down and hit the corner opposite the Clubhouse then come back on a long port tack, but as the morning progressed this didn’t pay and working the shifts further towards the more windward clubhouse side of the lake seemed better.
Racing remained close with quite a few minor boat to boat brushes and some nosediving changing the order. Mikedsp just emerged the winner on countback from PaulP, with JohnC only two points behind, and then Clive and James a further three points back with Clive taking 4th on countback. Really close racing.
JohnC was very unlucky to be tagged while leading a race comfortably, and quite a few turns were made in the very gusty conditions changing positions.
Full results as shown below, with thanks to Dave for keeping us organised and taking the photos (as usual), Dave and PaulP for doing the results and Andy for staying to RO. 
DF95’s
The gusty nominally southerly breeze remained from the clubhouse end, which swung easterly at times meant the difficulties from the morning continued into the afternoon for the DF95 racing. Unfortunately, only 5 skippers showed up/remained, perhaps a hangover from the DF95 open held at the weekend. The choice of rig was B, and after a bit of re-rigging of Steves boat, first time the B rig had been used, we were ready to go, 5 minutes later than normal. The same standard course as the morning was used, and as normal with a small fleet the starts were self monitored and the first to finish recorded the race result.
Racing was generally dominated by Paul and Clive showing good boat speed from the outset, but having said that there were a couple of very close races with 4 boats rounding the gate mark together.
Further back Martin was best of the rest picking up a second place in race 7, in a tight finish, just getting the better of Paul. Steve showed he was picking up the skills to move him up the fleet and was only beaten by Malcolm on count back with Malcolms third place in the last race edging him ahead.
Towards the end of racing the wind dropped of slightly and we could have probably dropped to A rig, but there were still a few strong gusts that kept B as a safe option. All in all a great afternoons social sailing inpartial sun and warm temperatures for the time of year and a decent breeze. What better way to spend an afternoon with good friends
- Paul Plested 7pts 5 wins
- Clive Warren 9pts 3 wins
- Martin Whittingham Jones 17pts
- Malcolm Harvey 25pts 1 x third
- Steve Miller 25pts
