There was a good turnout of 12 boats for round 3 of the DF95 Winter Series 2025/6. The fleet was made up of nine home boats and three visitors.We also had two visitors from Budworth SC who are in the process of setting up a Radio Sailing section with DF95’s and came to learn about racing at Birkenhead and also managed to get some racing in as well.
There was a light SE breeze from the Clubhouse which varied in strength from close to zero through to around 8 knots in the short lived gusts. The front of the fleet saw some very close competitive racing with all of the top seven helms placing in the top 3 first time around the windward mark, at some point during the day. Holding onto that lead through to the end could prove difficult though, as the breeze was patchy and shifty with significant pressure differences at boats even just 2m away from each other. Finding the breeze (or being lucky enough for it to find you!), would prove to be the winning formula.
Race wins were taken by Peter Baldwin, Paul Plested and Martin Roberts (sailing for team “Sid Various”). Ian Davies had a strong and consistent day and was unfortunate to miss out on a race win several times.
Places fourth to seventh finished very close with only two points separating these four boats, giving an indication of how close racing was for the whole afternoon. Sid Various was mostly Martin Roberts (who unfortunately missed the first two races) plus our two visitors from Budworth who put in some decent results to gain the fourth place on countback over Alan Watkinson. Clive and Guy were well matched with Clive only gaining the upper hand on the basis of three fourths beating Guy’s two and after both counting a second and third.
Overall a good afternoon of racing, with Peter coming out a clear winner with seven wins, Paul second with three wins and Ian third. Things may have been different if Martin had managed to sail all twelve races, but an unfortunate late arrival and some rigging work for Brian scuppered his chances of a better place.
Thanks go to Neil and Dave for runing the racing with help from our visitors and to Dave for the photos and making tea at half time. The next round of the DF95 Winter Series is on Saturday 14th February, enter via this link.
Next week (Saturday 24th January), sees Round 3 of the IOM Winter Series, with entry via this link.
