With the forecast strong winds in little evidence and good sun to warn things up when preparing their boats, competitors just had to decide was it a No1 or No2 rig day to start? The first race proved that No1 was the right rig with 9 out of 10 competitors choosing this and surviving most of the occasional gusts.
Red Wine, Widget, TS 2 and Lintel designs were in evidence today at the latest Birkenhead winter series along with the usual sprinkling of Britpops and a V9. This spread of designs was to prove interesting in the shifty top suite conditions especially when the legendary “Mrs Jones” opened her back door and wind shifts became hard to judge at times. In fact the ten races had six different winners but Brad managed six wins with his Red Wine to again take the day.
Behind him Martin “I only deal in seconds” Roberts sailed a consistent day with his pink Widget to finish two points ahead of John Brierley in his BritPop. Lawrence and Andrew we’re having some good scores and Bill was always there or thereabouts.
Graham Elliott with a newly sourced TS 2 found a better battery to get his winch working well to win race 2 and then in race 7, Neil Westbrook with his Widget led from start to finish to have a well deserved win.
Radio problems gave Peter Baldwin some problems but in between those glitches had some strong results along with our two visitors Chris Chatfield and John Berry who both started in B rigs .
So a really great days racing , and a big thanks as always to Bernie McNulty as PRO and his assistants Jack and Dave Williams.
Next week (16th February) is round 6, start time 1300 as usual.
1st Brad Gibson 2 10pts
2nd Martin Roberts 55 22pts
3rd John Brierley 84 24pts
4th Graham Elliot 17 30pts ( 2 x 4 ths )
5th Bill Culshaw 21 30pts ( 1 x 4th )
6th Peter Baldwin 63 42pts
7th Andrew Peter 66 50pts
8th Neil Westbrook 03 54pts
9th Lawrence Drennen 57 67pts
10th Chris Chatfield 7 73pts
11th John Berry 12 84pts
10 races sailed
