DF65’s
An excellent turnout for today’s DF65 racing started with the boats ashore for the two minutes silence.
Initially there hadn’t seemed any chance of racing, but just a whisper of wind came in and this proved enough for racing over a shortened course. Commodore Dave very kindly ran the mornings racing and picked the outer finish mark as the windward mark, with the start line and downwind gate as usual.
The forecasts had suggested wind direction to be somewhere Northerly (ish) and quite steady, but in the event the direction was South East (ish) and very patchy, with big shifts and flat spots. First away from a strongly port end biased line was Mike DSP who held on to win race 1, Paul won the next two, and then John the fourth. This set a pattern for the day with these three sharing the wins, but with other skippers very close or in front at various stages.
Apart from the start which remained port end biased, it was very tricky to pick the right upwind moves, with much place changing between the gate to the finish in almost every race. Picking the gate marks also proved a challenge as the “windward” gate mark simply didn’t pay in some races.
Paul ran out the winner, one point ahead of Mike dSP who managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by going the wrong way up last beat of the last race to be passed a few feet from the line. Racing was surprisingly good right across the fleet given the unpromising conditions, with no position secure until the finish.
Great turnout of twelve skippers, and a big thank you to the Commodore for running the racing and doing the results and getting a few photos, and also helping a beginner sailing a semi scale yacht to get going. Was also very nice to see Neil who sailed Steve’s boat for race 8.
DF95’s
