DF65’s
A most interesting day at Gautby road which started with an excellent 65 and 95 tuning talk by Paul Plested and Peter Baldwin. This was followed with close attention by a good crowd of regular club racers, and covered the basic dos – and some dont’s – of pre sailing setup. Paul did remind everyone that you still have to start well and hit the shifts, but there was definitely something in the talk for everyone to take away.
As someone said afterwards – I’m still confused, but confused at a higher level! Thank you Paul and Peter.
Onto the sailing with a Eastish wind blowing from the clubhouse slightly diagonally down the lake maybe favouring port tack slightly. Neil very kindly RO’d for the morning and used the standard course with the longest beat available. The line was plenty long enough and enabled good starts at various places as the conditions changed.
Starting the first race on A+ it became immediately clear that a smaller rig would be needed, and everyone went straight to B which initially seemed like overkill (as you can see in some of the photos), but as the gusts increased during the morning it proved to be the correct choice.
Clive put in two bullets straight away, Peter won the third race and Mike dsp the fourth and these three won all the morning races between them, with Clive eventually winning four of the seven races completed to run out a clear winner having sailed consistently well. Mdsp scraped a second , one point in front of Peter, with Andrew fourth, and John and Richard fifth and sixth only separated by countback.
There was a lot of very close racing with decisions at the downwind gate making a big difference, and major variations in both pressure and direction right across the course making it a challenging but enjoyable days sailing for all.
Big thanks again to Paul and Peter for the tuning session, to Neil for ROing and to Dave for doing the results – shown below – plus having time for some photo’s (once we went to B rig) and keeping everything together as always. The one photo from the first race with everyone in A+ at the start of the report is from Paul Plested.
Sadly Stuart Trunkfiekd got hooked on a gate mark in Race 6 and so missed out on T+Race 6 and 7 and needed the waders on to untangle his boat.
DF95’s
The morning conditions continued into the afternoon with lovely sunshine and a good easterly breeze. A practice by some skippers using A rigs soon prompted a change to B rig and this proved a good compromise for the conditions. The same standard course as the morning was set by RO Neil Westbrook who kindly volunteered his services.
Nine skippers took to the water to enjoy the challenges. The easterly wind direction always throws up some tricky sailing with a lot of decisions for the helm, where to start on the line, although port tack was the tack to take you down the lake it wasn’t strong enough to clear starboard boats by the time you had tacked and built up speed again. It was therefore a case of how quick could you get onto port and away. The non clubhouse side was also in the lee of the trees on that side with all the problems they could cause.
There were plenty of shifts and false knocks to fall foul of and make even the best skippers look silly at times, but it did also give everyone a chance to pick up a place or two. The approach to the windward mark was probably the most difficult part of the course as the wind bounced of the clubhouse and often this would be where the race could be won or lost. The run could be problematic with localised gust leaving a boat 2m away stranded whilst the others screamed past fighting a nosedive. The final decision on which gate mark to take was the final major decision to be made, take the starboard mark to gain the port tack but perhaps suffer the tricky wind through the trees or go port mark in clearer air and hope for a lift. The truth was it was a toss up which way to go and was never the same twice in a row
With all that said the sailing was closely contested with six of the nine skippers notching up at least 1 podium position and 5 helms posting at least 1 bullet. Peter was the pick of the bunch with 4 firsts, Paul with 2 and Stuart T and Alan 1 each. The racing was tricky and closely fought but really enjoyable especially with the sun on our backs.
Thanks to Neil for volunteering to RO, Clive for the photos and Paul for compiling results in A fleet.
