It was a glorious sunny morning and the conditions made for some good sailing. The wind was blowing down the lake towards the club house in an West/NorthWast direction. The wind strength was estimated to be 6 – 8 knots. It did go light at times coupled with occasional strong puffs. There were plenty of shifts and headers to be had with all sailors benefiting and losing.
We had a good turn out of 8 skippers. A standard course was set utilising the full length of the lake with two laps being used in keeping with Saturday racing.
The first race commenced promptly at 10:15am under the stewardship of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook (thank you very much Dave and Neil). Skippers all had the “A” rig on which was perfect for the conditions.
The first race proved to be very competitive with a number of skippers getting into the groove with boat setup. Peter and Clive led the way whilst other skippers trading places playing the headers and lifts.
The racing continued in the same vein, Peter, Clive, John and Stuart maintaining their good start to the morning’s racing, other skippers still searching for the right race setup.
Andrew Mearns sailing 04 received some helpful tips from Peter and immediately saw an improvement in the boat’s performance. Other skippers were hit by the snowball knot – namely Stuart who had to retire to the club house to make repairs, meanwhile the racing on the water carried on with several skippers exchanging places. Martin in 77 was also suffering from what appeared to be a non-centred rudder which did not help on the long beats from one end of the course to the other.
Some boats seemed very attracted to the buoys with some skippers even hitting them twice just for good measure. Overall the racing did remain quite competitive as helms picked the shifts heading up to the top mark, sometimes inshore paid and other times offshore paid. You paid your money and took your chance.
In the main it turned out to be a very enjoyable morning’s sailing with Peter taking overall 1st, Clive 2nd and John 3rd – well done, some very consistent sailing from all three helms. Andy Mearns picked up a good 4th overall after a slow start.
Once again a big thanks to Dave and Neil for being the RO’s for the day and Dave for the usual photos.
