Seven sailors turned up, more in hope than expectation of enough wind in which to sail. They were rewarded with a light but useable wind mainly running the length of the pond from the Gautby Road end. Most races were conducted with a start-line at the Northwest end of the pond, two port-hand turning marks at the bottom and a single turning mark at the far Northwest. As the wind died in the Northwest corner, the final race was run with the start-line as a gate. With fickle winds, positions changed regularly throughout each race and several people scored firsts. Nevertheless, consistency won out, with Andrew Potter coming a well-deserved overall first. The results were:
Author: Peter Baldwin
DF/RG65 Summer 2022 #6 (6/8/22)
7 RG 65’s made it to the start line for todays race, 5 UNO’s, 1 ARGON and 1 ELECTRONICA. A lovely top suit wind from the top end with plenty of gusts and shifts, with all choosing there maximum sail area rigs, mostly swing rigs but 2 conventional rigs.
The wind did gradually build through the day and there was plenty of downwind diving on either side of tea break.
The day belonged to Bill Culshaw sailing a chartered Electronica, who achieved a very impressive set of scores, top 3 finishes in all but one race and this was with 3 recalls for him through the day. Peter Baldwin was not far behind on the overall scores in second place sailing his Uno followed by Graham Elliott sailing his Argon.
Race winners were. Bill Culshaw (6), Peter Baldwin (4), John Brierley (1), Graham Elliott (1)
Many thanks must go to Paul Hounslow for starting and finishing us and Jack for making the tea.
- Bill Culshaw Electronica 14pts
- Peter Baldwin Uno 20pts
- Graham Elliott Argon 27pts
- John Brierley Uno 28pts
- Alan Watkinson Uno 45pts
- Charles Legg Uno 57pts
- Dave Williams Uno 64pts
DF65 Social Racing #31 (3/8/22)
Thirteen sailors turned out today, with a few that hadn’t made it down for a number of weeks. Initially the view was that the breeze suited the A+, but when the start time came around, it was definitely A and verging on a B Rig due to the strength of the gusts, estimated at around 16 knots, mostly straight down the lake from the far end, but with some significant gusts catching the unwary out.
Peter moved the marks around for a windward leeward single lap course and we got started around 11:10 having changed down. Everyone took it in turns to run a race each, but that meant thirteen races had to be completed, leading to a slightly later finishing time of 13:10, stopping a few sailors from participating in every race.
John Brierley and Peter Baldwin mostly had a good close tussle for race wins John with 6 and Peter with 3, although there were also wins for Derek Matthews (2), Alan Watkinson (1), and Dave Williams (1). Racing was mostly very close throughout the fleet, with rarely anyone getting well in the lead, never to be challenged. John won the day, with Peter close behind and then 3rd place had to go to countback to split Dave from Neil. A great mornings racing, with thanks going to Dave for working out the final scores.
- John Brierley 84 15pts
- Peter Baldwin 63 17pts
- Dave Williams 233 39pts (1 win)
- Neil Westbrook 03 39pts (0 win)
- Alan Watkinson 373 46pts
- Mike De St Paer 35 47pts
- Derek Matthews 57 64pts
- John Carlin 11 65pts
- Richard Walker 39 69pts
- Paul Hounslow 82 90pts
- Malcolm Harvey 1019 92pts
- John Beech 80 96pts
- Charles Legg 21 112pts
Next Saturday afternoon (6th) is racing for the DF and RG65, why not join us.
Club Members in action at the DF95 Nationals 2022
The DF95 Nationals were held at Two Islands RSC (Milton Keynes) over the last weekend (30th/31st July). Club members John Brierley, David Potter and Peter Baldwin were representing the club in what proved to be a rather trying weekend of sailing with floating weed making an unusual appearance at this lake during the Summer, perhaps as a consequence of extended period with no rain and low water levels. The club did what they could to try and mitigate the problem (which seemed to get worse during the days sailing) and allow the event to continue. We had a couple of people standing in the water for a good part of each day ready to lift out a boat and remove any weed before sending it on its way.
Starting with 4 heats and ending with 3, only 9 races were completed. A heavy rain shower mid afternoon on Sunday killed the wind and a resultant wind shift left insufficient time to completely rearrange the course and ensure that we could get a further race completed. Full results are available on the home page of the DFRacing website https://dfracinguk.com/ but the key results from the club’s perspective were Peter in 2nd and David Potter in 11th.
The next DF TT that members may be interested in entering is at Fleetwood on the 24th (DF65) and 25th (DF95) September. For those with a DF95, Fleetwood have an Open on Bank Holiday Sunday, with 3 members already entered.
Open Sailing Afternoon #6 (30/7/22)
Because many members were away sailing at other events this weekend, it was great to have such an interesting mix of boats turn out for another Saturday Open Sailing Day.
Our Dutch guest Daan M akkink and his wife arrived with a beautifully restored vintage 10 Rater, expertly converted to RC, and enjoying it’s first UK sail. Daan has obviously dedicated some serious hours in it’s restoration, and he spent a lot of time putting it through its paces on our lake. It was great to see his enjoyment and also ours in acknowledging his efforts. ( see Pics)
Neil, Alan, Paul, Charles and Andrew arrived with an extensive selection of radio yachts, ranging from RG65, DF65, DF 95 and IOM’s, with Paul Hounslow’s Manta IOM and Andrew’s John Gale built Triple Crown sailing well. At any one time,it was possible to see all of these boats sailing in a fleet, and simply enjoying the fun of Radio Sailing.
However – the ‘ Icing on the cake’ to a great day of Radio sailing was when Graham Birkett arrived with his ‘Starkers’ Marblehead, and showed us all what amazing boats these are, in terms of speed and agility.
Social Sailing at it’s best, and lets hope we get more interest in these Open Days, when many classes of boats are present, and we have the time to compare, assist and advise and have great fun !
Andrew Peter
DF95 Social Racing practice afternoon (27/7/22)
Five Skippers put their boats on the water to have some sprint racing of a single lap and allow comparison of rig and sail settings and see what worked and what didn’t. Dave Williams very graciously agreed to loan his fin and keel to someone who forgot theirs and his reward was then to run the racing for everyone. A big thank you to Dave for doing this.
There were some interesting results and differences in boat speed, although this was at times difficult to judge with the wind being very patchy. By the end of the session comprising 8 races, the boats were more evenly matched and some sailors have some future work to do, to re-rig or even obtain replacement sails before the next session.
Peter took the lions share of 6 wins for first, with Neil picking up the other two (in a borrowed boat) for second and Alan finishing with a strong cluster of podium places to edge Andrew out of third place.
An Album of photos taken by John Beech are available in the Gallery here
- Peter 172 6pts
- Neil 179 10pts
- Alan 04 17pts
- Andrew 288 19pts
- Richard 52 24pts
