DF65’s
Real Autumn day at Gautby road today with sunshine and a clear sky, but properly chilly for the first time this year with everyone looking for extra layers of insulation. The wind was Northerly as forecasted, blowing with some chunky gusts from the far corner of the lake, and leaving an obvious flat patch on the far side where the trees are. A rig was right for the conditions which ranged from flat calm to top end on some of the runs.
Less obvious – but became clear as soon as racing started – was that the breeze was all over the place all over the lake. Down at the start line it looked a no brainer to start on starboard at the outer end, but as always it wasn’t that way all the time as in practice the starboard tack “parking” area had intermittent flat spots causing boats to be late for the start despite being quite close to the line.
Racing was very keen right across the fleet with individual boats getting away up the beat only to be reeled in elsewhere on the track. The wind went very slightly right over the morning which made the approach to the top mark a real lottery. Clive and Mike swapped a one two in the first two races, Andrew won the third, James the fourth, and then Andrew did a complete horizon job in race five.
Boat glitches also affected the results for several skippers. Alan put in a third in race one, then lost the next three races due to a rigging failure and a delay warming his fingers up enough to retie everything. James missed the first race re-rigging his winch, and then after a clear win in race six and ROing race seven, Alan’s boat wouldn’t fire up again so he missed races eight and nine.
Clive did some boat whispering for Dave White who was immediately much faster, while Charles started off with a couple of good results but then had something in the rig slip so missed a number of races dealing with it.
Some very close racing with five different winners, and the usual thanks to Commodore Dave for keeping things moving and doing the results and taking photos which are as shown below.
- 35 Mike de St Paer 10pts 3 wins
- 194 Andrew Potter 14pts 2 wins
- 53 Clive Warren 15pts 1 win
- 73 James Douglas 16pts 2 wins
- 94 David White 28pts (ahead on countback)
- 33 Dave Williams 28pts
- 373 Alan Watkinson 34pts 1 win
- 39 Richard Walker 39pts
- 21 Charles Legg 49pts
DF95’s
6 skippers turned out in the afternoon for the 95 social sailing. The afternoon was much like the morning with what felt like a bitterly cold northerly blowing from the opposite corner of the lake from the clubhouse. A similar course to the morning was used with the usual windward mark, spreader and gate, and for 3 of the races an extended beat to the finish was used but this spread the field out too much and so was shortened back to finishing half way up the lake. With only 6 boats the starts were self monitored, and first to finish recorded the results. 8 races were sailed giving 2 discards.
From the start the skippers were almost split into 2 groups with Alan, Paul and Clive in the leading pack with Steve, Stuart and Andy in the second pack. Conditions were very tricky even by Gautby Rd standards, especially at the top end of the lake when trying to plan a route into the windward mark and many a position as won or lost at this point. For the luck ones getting round the first mark often meant a winning position especially if the leader picked up on one of the frequent gusts which would see them halfway down the lake whilst the boats behind were left wallowing still at the windward mark. Despite this there was some very tight racing within the 2 groups with so close finishes and private duals and the skippers couldn’t ease up as there were plenty of holes to drop into and false shifts to trick even the experienced helm leaving them in irons going nowhere fast.
In the leading group Paul made the best of the conditions, clocking up 4 wins and 2 seconds, with Clive a close second with 2 firsts and 5 seconds, with Alan a very close third also with 2 wins and 1 second. In the second group there also was close competition, with Andy having the family bragging rights over his brother this week with Steve slotting in between them.
All in all, a cold, frustrating (at times) afternoon but still enjoyable racing with very good individual battles.
Results
- Paul Plested 8pts 4 wins
- Clive Warren 10pts 2 wins
- Alan Watkinson 13pts 2 wins
- Andy Mearns 26pts
- Steve Miller 28pts
- Stuart Mearns 32pts
