The seventeen sailors who turned out for this second Jack Turner Trophy IOM Open, arrived to find a decent westerly breeze nearly straight down the lake and some sunshine starting to show. Paul Plested was out in the waders getting the “competition marks” in the water with a rough course for the practice session. These were then tweaked before the briefing to take account of a slight shift and the course remained without any changes for the rest of the day.
After a short briefing (and no questions), by Paul, racing got underway on time under the watchful eye of our RO duo of Neil Westbrook and Dave Williams. The start line was probably port biased at the start of the day, as long as you had the room to tack off and not get pinned all the way to the bank. Later on it became more even and occasionally slightly starboard biased, before returning to port.
First blood went to Robbie Mac, closely followed by Paul Plested and Graham Elliott. Brad Gibson then had a run of three wins, with Roger Crates, Martin Roberts, Graham and Paul Middleton all getting on the podium. Graham then took the final race before a coffee break, with Peter Baldwin and Brad following behind. Sailors were treated to a variety of Cakes and biscuits (mostly home made) all served up with free tea and coffee by Joss and Chris in the galley.
Following the break, Graham had three more wins, with Brad and Robbie taking one apiece. Podium places were gained by Brad, Graham, Martin and Bill Culshaw, who was starting to get to grips with the tricky conditions. The wind was not easy to manage with some strong gusts barreling down the course at times, usually knocking at least half the fleet over on the run, whilst a few might escape “scott free”. Lunch was then called, soon after 12:30 with ten races completed.
As the fleet emerged after the lunch break, conditions seemed pretty similar to just before lunch, but a few nasty gusts sent a number of sailors back to the clubhouse to change rigs and a small delay ensued.
As we resumed with about 5 boats on B rig’s Bill put his to great use and rounded the Windward mark well in the lead holding onto this through to the finish, with Graham chasing hard but unable to catch him. In this next session of five races, Graham took an additional win, Martin had two and Simon Fairman had a great start and picked up a win in Race 14. Podium spots once again taken by pretty much the same top 5 boats.
So, into the final session of five races and most were back in A rigs as the gusts were not as strong as earlier and having been good straight after lunch, never showed the same promise later in that session. Peter took the first win after the tea break, with Brad then picking up two and Graham and Robbie one each.
After twenty races, our RO decided to call it a day, a little before time, but useful for those who had travelled some distance. When the results were entered, the day went to Brad Gibson sailing his Post Punk design, closely followed by Graham Elliott sailing his 2011 BritPOP! with Martin Roberts third also sailing a BritPOP!
At the prizegiving, where Jacks’ daughter Debbie presented the prizes, Brad thanked everyone involved in setting up and running the event, Joss and Chris for running the galley all day, then thanked the six visitors for travelling to the event. He also wished Graham and Martin every success at the forthcoming World Championship being held at Datchet Water in mid May.
Thanks to Stuart Mearns for the photos in today’s report, with additional photo’s in the event Flikr Album here.
The next IOM Club racing is on Saturday 9th May, just one week before the World Championship begins.
