DF65’s
Ten DF65 sailors arrived at Gautby Rd today to be greeted by very pleasant conditions …. sunny but not too hot and a gentle breeze blowing down the lake towards the clubhouse. A+ rigs were the default option as was the standard course. All the usual Gautby Rd hazards were in place. ….. significant wind shifts, puffs, lulls and dead spots, weed plus a new hazard not experienced before which became very apparent in the first race!
As the first boats approached the windward mark for the first time, they ground to a halt. Weed was the cry. The next boats took a different line into the mark hoping to capitalise on the misfortunes of the leaders, but they too ground to a halt. Weed bed was now the cry. The back markers then arrived and proceeded to join the rest of the fleet now parked all around the mark. Massive weed bed the cry changed to.
With seemingly everybody stuck and unable to escape the apparent water borne triffid, Andrew set off to get the waders. On his return most boats had escaped but his own and Charles’s were still there. Arriving at he mark he lifted the boats out the water expecting clumps of weed on the keel …. but nothing apart from a cloud of disturbed mud in the water. It quickly became apparent that there was no weed … but equally not enough water for a DF65 to sail in … everybody had just gone aground! With no rainfall for the past 6 weeks, the water level in the lake has dropped by at least a foot creating a problem that only some prolonged rainfall is going to solve
Luckily the clubhouse half of the lake is a couple of inches deeper which allowed us to move the windward marks down the lake and continue racing … although there were still areas which were shallow enough to slow the boat during tacks as it came upright. The other downside was that any weed on the bottom of the lake invariably got picked up by everybody at some point or other. Only the luckiest managed to complete a whole race without weed, with everybody else having to make formula 1 pit-stop tactical decisions, as to continue racing with weed, come into the bank on the downwind leg to remove it, or round the leeward mark before coming into the bank to remove it
Over an 8 race series, it’s probably safe to assume that everybody got affected the same, but it didn’t feel that way as you watched boats cruise past you, or you made a major detour into the bank to de-weed
John and James were first and second, both seemingly suffering from more weed early on before managing to avoid or manage it better. Charles was third, and I was too busy removing my own weed to see what tactics he was deploying … but he may have been avoiding any pit stops and just accepting the weed drag. Andrew was fourth, dragged down by a couple of catastrophic weed encounters and only 1 race discard, with Clive in fifth who appeared to spend most the the morning clearing the weed from the lake with his keel.
Many thanks go to Dave Williams who opted to be RO today and take a few photos whilst he was at it.
DF95’s
To follow.
