Another excellent turnout of ten DF65 sailors today on a forecast which really didn’t look that promising. The lake looked pretty flat but there were just enough patches of breeze to make a start worthwhile.
Commodore Dave chased everyone for a prompt – or even early – start on a standard course. The existing start mark positions offered a choice between a very starboard – or a very port – biased start line. It was so light and fluky that no one reckoned it was worth paddling to do a reset so the starboard biased line was chosen as the “least worst” option. This full course was used for race one, but as the race duration was close to 20 minutes overall it was then agreed to run a shortened Port hand course using the finish mark as the windward mark, and the leeward gate as a leeward mark and spreader. This worked well and enabled the fleet to get in six races until on the seventh, as noted below, the wind went to nothing although Alan had sailed a perfect race and was the only boat to get across the line although Richard got very close before all the other competitors were finished on the water
The wind was really very light and patchy, but it seemed initially to pay to get right down to the pin and then try and get away on starboard. This seemed to pay to start with but in later races it began to pay to start nearer the clubhouse side and then make a short port tack to stay in the middle of the course and keep the options open.
What breeze there was came – as forecast – from the South East, and stayed in until a bit of drizzle brought in a slow reduction in pressure until in race 7 it went absolutely flat, and it was agreed to finish the morning session by giving places on the water.
Various boats showed good speed at different times, including Andy Mearns who was suddenly right on the pace after some mid-session tweaking. There were four different race winners over the morning’s racing, and despite the conditions racing was very keen. With a couple of extra race wins Mike dsp was able to stay clear of the pack on a day where luck was definitely a factor.
Full results as shown below with the usual thanks to Commodore Dave for moving things along, and to Malcom who kindly ROd for us and did the results as well.
