DF65’s
Almost spring like feel to the weather today, with a light S.S.E. breeze and no rain. The marks at the top end of the course were just outside the clubhouse flat patch, although not ideally placed, and at the leeward end the start line looked to be heavily pin biased although that varied significantly over the mornings racing. The first race used a course with the beat running inside the start mark, but thereafter it was agreed to go direct to the top mark. Using a single bottom mark and not a gate resulted in some close encounters of the DF65 kind, and although there were a number of minor contacts during the morning in general everyone was good about doing turns where they were required.
It was great to see such a good turnout, and of the twelve skippers there were some very welcome returning faces including Paul Little, Don, and Andrew Potter.
Conditions were shifty as always with the wind direction, and racing was very keen right from the start, with four winners in the first five races, Alan, John, Andrew, and Mike. The other two race winners during the morning were James, and Paul Little who was sailing a brand new hull after his previous one failed. The excitement of winning race five was clearly too much for Mike’s boat which had to be retired with a failed rudder servo, and Stuart missed a couple of races fixing a minor rigging problem.
The wind went somewhat left during the morning and got lighter, but John continued at the front by winning two more races to finish on 13 points well clear of the rest of the fleet. Behind John second to fifth was extremely close as shown below, with only 2 points covering the next four boats, with full results shown below.
A really tight days racing, with the usual thanks to Dave for keeping us all in order, Clive for the photos this week and to Malcolm for doing the results.
DF95’s
If we thought the morning wind was tricky, well in the afternoon it was twice a tricky and half the strength. It swung from SSE in the morning to SSW, which doesn’t sound a lot but meant it was now coming straight across the lake from the houses. This possibly counted or the reduction in strength but definitely provided a difficult and frustrating challenge.
The same course as the morning was used and the starts were self monitored, with the first across the line recording the finishing positions. A slightly disappointing turnout of 6 skippers were up to the challenge.
The conditions were a great leveller and it was literally anybody’s race and the skippers couldn’t relax. Beats turned into runs and you could change from starboard to port tack without changing course. Added to this there were more holes than on a golf course to catch even the better skippers out. Its fair to say that Ian probably suffered the most going from the front of the fleet to the back on more than one occasion. As an indication of how competitive it was, 5 of the 6 skippers all recorded at least one 2nd place or better. However generally speaking it was Ian, and Clive leading the pack with Stuart T a close 3rd and the others making the most of when the front 3 got into trouble or just sat in a hole, which was frequent. Ian who had the worst of the luck decided enough was enough after 5 races, and after 8 races providing 2 discards the rest of us followed his lead back to the clubhouse
Summary
If you didn’t laugh at times you could have cried, but it was the same for all and in the end it was quite enjoyable in a masochistic sort of way. Good competition throughout the fleet, good banter and sailed in a social manner.
Thanks to Clive for photos and Malcolm for tabulating the results
