c

RG/DF65 Winter Series #1 report

The first of the RG65/DF65 today at Birkenhead, unfortunately the wind was from the South which for anyone that wants to know is the houses wind, not ideal, and difficult to lay a course but Peter once again donned the waders and did his best. All the RG’s were in there top swing rigs except for Martin that had borrowed Johns Pocket Rocket for the event but John chose to supply Martin with a slightly lower aspect top suit that did disadvantage him on the day but he’s still a tough nut to crack. The DF’s all chose the A plus rig.
The DF’s and RG’s all start on the same gun but the DF’s had a slightly shortened course, this option of racing does seem to work when sailing a mixed fleet, giving plenty of practice on a loaded start line.
The wind started off with quite a few vicious gusts but as the day went on these gusts vanished and the wind swung around about 20 degrees making more of a reaching course unfortunately, still plenty of skill required though looking for those pockets of wind and shifts.
The racing proved to be very close on the day with only 16 points separating 3rd-8th in the RG fleet, Graham and John sharing all 8 wins between them took 1st and 2nd, unfortunately we lost Peter after race 5 with a split tyre on his car and this needed to be changed before his journey home. The DF fleet was dominated by Mike who took all 8 races, well done.
Well done also to Bernie who started and finished us, having to walk round to the top bank to accurately get our finishing scores kept his steps up.
The club has gone from strength to strength in these lockdown periods that have stopped us travelling further afield, lets keep this level of entries and quality up in 2021 and hopefully we will see the fruits of this when travelling is open again.

RG65s

  1. Graham Elliott            55   Argon                       6pts    6 wins
  2. John Brierley                84    Uno                        10pts    2 wins
  3. Martin Roberts            22   Pocket Rocket    20pts
  4. Peter Baldwin              63   Pocket Rocket    24pts
  5. David Potter                 20   Pocket Rocket   27pts
  6. Matt Stephenson        08   Pocket Rocket  33pts
  7. Dave Williams              33   Pocket Rocket  34pts
  8. Neil Westbrook            03   Pocket Rocket 36pts

DF65s

  1. Mike de St Paer       35     6pts  6 wins
  2. Colin Deakin             93      18pts
  3. Derek Mathews       57      18pts