Birkenhead Radio Sailing & Power Club
Another brilliant turnout of 16 skippers hoping to have a pleasant mornings sailing. Unfortunately a thin layer of ice put paid to that. So better luck next Wednesday.
We are hopeful that an increase in temperature will thaw the ice for IOM racing on Saturday.
The forecast for today was sunny but light winds from the NNW or N. Fortunately, although we did have a light breeze with holes in, it was more generally 1 to 5 knots WNW to NW with occasional shifts to the N.
There was an excellent turnout of 13 boats for this second Winter Series for the DF95 and we had some very close races with a good spread of 5 helms taking at least one win. Occasionally one boat might get away from the fleet, but generally the finishes were closely contested through the fleet with positions and the lead often changing during the last leg from the gate through to the finish.
Peter Baldwin made the most of the conditions picking up 4 wins and overall first place, but John Brierley although having only one win was very consistent, discarding a third and fourth to take second place ahead of Martin Roberts who had two wins, but was not as consistent. Special mention must go to John Carlin (2 wins) and Clive Warren (1 win) who both managed to pull away from the fleet for their race wins and leave the rest to fight for the remaining places.
During the afternoon, there was plenty of help being given towards sailors throughout the fleet on tactics and boat setup suggestions to help the fleet improve and in the later races the fleet was definitely less spread out at the finish and windward mark roundings were very close.
Thanks must go to Neil Westbrook for acting as our RO for the afternoon, keeping us all in line with several individual recalls and a few general recalls as well. In addition, here are a full set of results thanks to Malcolm Harvey.
Don’t forget that the DF TT series Rounds 1 & 2 will take place at West Lancs YC (Sothport) on the 20th (DF65) and 21st (DF95) January. This event is one of the closest locations to Birkenhead (it can be done as a day trip) and where you can gain more experience racing in larger fleets.
Next week (13th Jan) is the IOM Winter series #3.
Happy New Year to all memmbers and followers of the club.
Ten sailors keen to start the new year’s racing program, arrived only to find a complete lack of wind and a flooded pathway. The flooding was easily dealt with, but not so the lack of wind. After the usual discussions about Christmas and New Year celebrations, a decision was then made to cancel the meeting and hope for better on Saturday for the DF95 Winter Series #2, with 10 entries to date.
I have added photos taken by Mark Warren during the recent DF65 and DF95 Social Racing day on Wednesday 20/12/23. They are both available as separate albums in the Gallery section of the website.
Today was the last day of racing at the club prior to Christmas and only 7 DF65’s turned out on a breezy and at times damp December morning. Racing got underway after Peter moved the marks around to give a decent windward/leeward course over the whole length of the lake. Malcolm opted to be RO and was assisted by Mark Warren, who was also busy taking photos. Links to these photos will be added when they are available. John Br proved early on that there was just too much breeze in the gusts to easily sail in a B rig and so everyone other than John Be sailed with a C rig. There was a large ratio of mean to gust wind speed which tested the C rigs in the lulls (they stopped!) and the B rig in the gusts, overall though, the C rig did win out in most races as being the correct choice.
The morning belonged to John Br who picked up 7 wins from the 8 races and gave him first place with Peter the only one to spoil his clean sweep in one race, ending up second, and John Carlin in third. There were some close finishes throughout the fleet, although if you missed a shift or got on the wrong side of one, then a good lead could suddenly disappear. Getting a tack in first time was always essential, but easier said than done with gusts that might hit you unexpectedly.
Thanks to Malcolm for running the racing and Mark for assisting and taking photos.
No racing for the DF65 next week (27th), with racing resuming on Saturday 30th for the DF & RG65.
Following on from the morning 65s the 95 fleet took to the water in similar if not a little windier conditions. The choice of rig should have been C Rig but as some helms didnt have a C the choice was to use B Rig for a fun afternoon. 7 boats took to the water, The course was the same as the morning starting at the clubhouse end up to a spreader and back down through a gate and across the finishing line half way up the lake, The start line was port start biased but the better wind was on the factory side of the lake so there was a choice to be made, middle line on starboard was the safe option!!
Not many of the seven helms had previously sailed their 95s in these conditions so set up was difficult. Clives son Mark offered his services as RO for the afternoon (thanks Mark). 1 lap races were used, to enable rig adjustment and repairs where necessary.
The short ‘chop’ on the water along with the the over-sized rigs made sailing difficult with a lot of the boats having to gybe up the beat instead of tacking. Downwind was a brisk walk to keep up with the boats with some spectacular sights along the way. Thanks should also go to Peter for sharing his “boat set up” knowledge with the fleet, before and in between races
The races were dominated by Peter showing all his experience in the very testing conditions taking 4 wins out of the 5 races sailed. The rest of the fleet was very closely contested with 4 of the remaining helms achieving 3rd place or better, Dave Howard taking the other win. Clive and John C were both consistent and John B showed some very good boat speed but struggled to tack in a couple of races which cost him dearly. The wind strength increased throughout the afternoon and after 5 races we decided a tactical withdrawl was the sensible option to prevent damage to boats
A great fun sailing day was had today in unusual conditions (for Gautby Rd) for all the right reasons
Final Standings with 1 discard
1. Peter Baldwin 4pts (4 wins)
2. Dave Howard 11pts (1 win, 1 second)
3. Clive Warren 11pts (2 seconds, 1 third)
4. John Carlin 11pts (1 second, 3 thirds)
5 John Beech 19pts (1 third)
6 Malcom Harvey 20pts
7 Frans King 24pts
Merry Christmas everyone
I have now uploaded to Flikr an additional 193 photos taken by Malcolm Harvey on Saturday and accessible in our Flikr Gallery
