DF65 & DF95 Social Racing 2026 – 27/6/26

DF65’s

11 skippers showed up for what looked to be a lively morning of racing under blue skies in a blustery E/ESE breeze. After a bit of a lakeside tidy up and mark repositioning, the fleet got away broadly on time, all sporting A+ rigs after a trial sail which suggested A rig would be under powered…how wrong that proved to be!

In the first two races on our typical windward/leeward course Peter Baldwin demonstrated his skill and experience leading from start to finish in the challenging conditions. Those behind struggled a little more with the gusty breeze. Paul Plested bagged a 2^nd as did Charles Legg who kept his calm in race two, crossing the line ahead of Mike De St Paer in third, who also scored 3^rd in race one. David White picked up a very creditable 5^th in race one, and Richard Walker bagged a 4^th.

By race three it was clear that the wind was too much for the A+ rig with plenty of nosediving and broaching downwind with places quickly changing. Paul Plested managed to get to the leeward gate first, which he held on to the finish. Mike was 2^nd followed by Peter. Richard picked up another 4^th and Dave Williams grabbed a 5^th spot.

After a quick rig change the rest of the morning was sailed with A rig, and probably should have been down to B as the races progressed. Peter picked up two 2nds and a 1^st in this session which was enough to win on the day. Paul wasn’t too far behind also taking another 1^st and a 3^rd.

Guy Cowper had an excellent sail with his A rig scoring a pair of 2nds and 3rds, which gave him 3^rd overall on the day. Mike struggled to get his A boat tuned correctly for two races, otherwise he would have been pushing for 3^rd if not 2^nd on the day. Conversely Andrew Potter, who had struggled with his A+ rig due to technical issues with his boat, did have some better racing with the A.

Clive Warren, who missed the first three races, would probably have been further up the final table given that he podiumed in the last three races, including winning race seven.. Stuart Mearns also showed that he is improving with the 65, with a 4^th and a great 1^st on his scorecard during the day.

Overall an enjoyable if somewhat challenging morning of racing, watched over by Neil Westbrook and Malcolm Harvey who kindly acted as PRO and photographer this week.

DF95’s

It was a glorious sunny afternoon and the conditions made for some good sailing.  The breeze was light at times but in the main steady, with occasional strong puffs blowing down the lake from the club house end in an east south easterly to easterly direction.  There were plenty of shifts and headers to be had with all sailors benefiting and losing.

We had a good turn out of 9 helms.  A standard course was set utilising the full length of the lake with single laps to keep the races flowing. All the finishes were self-monitored.

Paul and Peter returned from the IOM Worlds and sailed as if they had not been away, sharing the spoils of first and second whilst the other skippers vied for the other places.

A number of skippers suffered from minor gear problems such as melting knot to non centred rudder, to complete rudder servo failure (unlucky Steve).

Overall the racing was close (or even very close), interesting but most importantly fun.  Once again the theme running through all races was consistency.  Don’t be over the line (805) before the start and race a clean race.

Overall, an enjoyable afternoons racing, the 95’s seem to handle the shifty/gusty conditions much better than the 65’s, or were we just getting more used to it?  A few stock photos this week I’m afraid as we were all too busy keeping in control to take photos.