DF65’s
Nine DF65 skippers today – still an excellent turnout, and a lovely summers day with a bit of wind (well in some places) and a comfortable mid 20s temperature.
The wind was approximately N.West, so blowing down the lake from the far end and it was possible to use marks in their existing position for the usual course format. The line was once again somewhat pin end biased, although with a slightly smaller fleet than last week this didn’t prove to be too much of a problem. Neil had again very kindly agreed to RO, and he had to call a number of individual recalls although we avoided any generals this week.
The beat – as ever – proved tricky, with a flat spot around half way up which caught everyone out at some stage. It paid to get away on Starboard from the pin and usually then paid to stay on Starboard as far as possible before tacking, but this didn’t always work as expected.
The top end of the beat was again very tricky with some major shifts and flat spots making for an interesting days racing. This was a day where starting well and boat speed, while necessary of course, were not the deciding factors overall, but positioning on the course and patience in dealing with the windless areas were key.
John Brierley aced the day with 5 race wins from 9 races, other winners being James, Clive, Stuart and Commodore Dave with one apiece – very good racing with only a few infringements and 2nd, 3rd and 4th covered by 3 points and then 5th, 6th and 7th covered by three points and quite a few positions decided by a few centimetres at the line .
Full results shown below with thanks again to Neil for ROing and to Dave for keeping it all running and doing the results.
DF95’s
A smaller turnout than normal this week, possibly due to holidays and the good spell of hot weather in the UK we are currently experiencing. Gautby Rd wasn’t any different with 26degrees, blue sky and a light to medium A rig breeze blowing down the lake from the far end to the clubhouse. The same standard course as the morning was used with a slightly different weather mark to make the approach a little more difficult.
The wind was interesting, a starboard biased start line meant a starboard start was preferred but and generally a long starboard beat paid off, if you could put a hitch in on a wind shift even better but generally three quarters of the way up the lake there was a shift to port to take you into the weather mark. The run as also tricky with the clubhouse side and middle favoured but it was pot luck which paid off. Finally the beat back from the gate to the finish was no certainty either, with both gate marks paying off in different races.
The normal practice for small fleets of self monitored starts and the first to cross the finish line records the results. Racing got underway on time, despite Guy querying his mast stability, we all thought it was fine, only for it to snap in half at the insert in the foot. Fortunately he had a spare A rig so a quick change and all was well.
The pre-start problems didn’t seem to affect Guy and he was fast out of the blocks taking the first race with Martin 2nd and Clive finishing up the podium positions.
Martin went one better in race 2 posting a deserved win, with Guy 2nd. The third race then saw Clive start to get into then groove, taking the first of his wins, with Guy being Mr consistent with another 2nd, Stuart managed 3rd.
The fourth race saw Clive and Martin a long way clear, and duelling for the top honours until Martin hooked the gate buoy which moved him to the back of the field, Guy and Stuart profiting from Martins’ mistake.
Race five and Guy was back in the hot seat with Clive and Martin completing the podium. Race six and Stuart got his just reward finally posting a win, with Guy and Martin filling the 2nd and 3rd spots, Clive finishing 4th fractionally ahead of John B, who was having an off day by his normal standards.
At this stage after 6 races with 1 discard, Guy was leading the way with his consistency with 8pts, Clive was second with 10pts and Martin third with 13pts, so all to play for through to the finish. Race 7 to 11 and Clive had a dream end to the session posting five straight bullets, leaving Guy and Martin to fight for the remaining podium positions.
In summary a testing wind direction with enough swing to make life interesting around the course, Martin sailed extremely well probably his most consistent for a long time and Guy was super consistent with top 3 places in each race. Stuart and John have had better days but were still smiling at the end, which is all that really matters!!!!
Just like buses – you wait for ages, then 16 DF65 skippers come along to sail, a terrific turnout today for social racing despite missing some key players.
Neil ran a couple of practice starts – a great idea – which confirmed that the pin was where to be so the starts were very busy with the expected group of boats all occupying the same bit of the lake. Neil called a couple of general’s and a number of individual recalls, but didn’t use the threatened black flag. It proved tricky to see individual sail numbers pre-start but, given the numbers, the starts seemed very fair overall.
There was a bit of left bias to the beat although that changed somewhat in the top half where, even though the wind direction was nearly straight down the lake, there was just enough West in it to make the top half of the beat and the approach to the top mark unpredictable. This made each beat and the approach to the top mark different, and lots of skippers made or lost a number of places here.
Paul emerged from all this with a string of firsts to win 4 out of 8 races and run out a clear winner. Mike Dsp only won one but was consistent enough to bag second just a couple of points clear of Clive, with Alan fourth. A number of skippers had to finish early for various reasons – John Brierly put in some top early results but then found his boat was leaking badly and having just replaced a lot of the electronics he opted to call a halt. Malcolm stopped early to do some boat maintenance, Mike Dsp missed the last race due to an RX battery failure, Andrew Potter suffered rig damage in a race 8 after Port/Starboard clash and Stuart also missed race 8 having posted some very good results.
Following on from a great turnout of DF65’s in the morning there were 9 skippers on the start line for the DF95’s in the afternoon. Wind, whilst a little up and down, was still straight down the lake, allowing for the standard course to be used, with everyone on A rigs. Neil Westbrook took on RO duties again and he was quick to call out those who sought to get away early, and there were a few of them caught out over the afternoon.
Clive Warren also started slowly, but like Alan he got better as the afternoon wore on, with four podium positions in the last four races of the day including a last race win. He may well have threatened Alan for second overall if he’d hung on to 2nd in an earlier race, which went begging after tangling with a running boat when lying 2nd on the short beat to the finish
Charles Legg also picked up good points early on and was in contention most of the afternoon but was a a tad shy of boat speed at times. Steve Miller also showed that he is getting better, with a fourth in one race and also being upfront early on in a number of races, which will eventually become results at the line as he progresses.
On a day when a good part of the country was sweltering in 30C+ temperatures, Gautby Road today served up a very pleasant sunny day with the temperature only reaching 24C at 14:00. This was probably due to the great 4 to 6mph breeze coming off the sea and blowing straight down the lake for the 6 (well 7 for a while) competitors who were out racing this morning.
Peter started off well and took Race 1, with Dave Williams close behind, although they seemed to have their own wind and pulled well clear of the chasing bunch, with Stuart eventually taking 3rd. Peter led once again in Race 2, but a wrong choice at the Leeward gate saw both Alan and Stuart nip through and give Alan the win after an uncharacteristic 6th in the first race.
Peter then polished off most of the other races until Race 8 when he picked up a sunken object on the start line. Finally extricating himself after about three minutes, he dutifully went back to ensure that it didn’t stay in the course area and had to be rescued by Steve Miller putting the waders on!
This gave Alan another win to add to a series of mostly second places and second overall. Having had a great start to the day, Stuart picked up 7 points from a DNC in Race 5 after a “snowball” knot required retying or perhaps even re-stringing and a 5th, allowing Commodore Dave to take 3rd overall. Charles had a few decent results, but unfortunately lacked the consistency to figure higher in the placings overall.
We were joined temporarily by John Brierley testing out new electrics after problems at the Nationals and to be fair he did win each race that he sailed, but our scorer didn’t add him to the score sheet with 6 missing races. Thanks to Dave for producing the final scores and taking a few photos for illustrating the report.
It was a glorious sunny morning and the conditions made for some good sailing. The wind was blowing down the lake towards the club house in an West/NorthWast direction. The wind strength was estimated to be 6 – 8 knots. It did go light at times coupled with occasional strong puffs. There were plenty of shifts and headers to be had with all sailors benefiting and losing.
The first race commenced promptly at 10:15am under the stewardship of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook (thank you very much Dave and Neil). Skippers all had the “A” rig on which was perfect for the conditions.
The racing continued in the same vein, Peter, Clive, John and Stuart maintaining their good start to the morning’s racing, other skippers still searching for the right race setup.
Some boats seemed very attracted to the buoys with some skippers even hitting them twice just for good measure. Overall the racing did remain quite competitive as helms picked the shifts heading up to the top mark, sometimes inshore paid and other times offshore paid. You paid your money and took your chance.
In the main it turned out to be a very enjoyable morning’s sailing with Peter taking overall 1st, Clive 2nd and John 3rd – well done, some very consistent sailing from all three helms. Andy Mearns picked up a good 4th overall after a slow start.
A small group of 6 sailors had a surprisingly good morning of sailing while those carrying out domestic chores, on holiday, still in bed etc etc missed out on some un-forecasted great conditions. I say un-forecasted because the forecast suggested a south westerly breeze which should be straight across the lake ….. and therefore pretty horrible. In reality it was more north westerly and straight down the lake towards the clubhouse, albeit with the usual Gautby Rd shifts, puffs and lulls which ensured that nobody could ever relax when at the front.
A+ rigs were selected which initially seemed a bit optimistic but proved to be correct with only a couple of puffs overpowering the unlucky ones downwind, who happened to be in the way.
The usual course was sailed, with no preferred way up the first beat apart from working the shifts and avoiding the lulls which became more prevalent towards the windward mark. Downwind was pretty straightforward while the leeward gate choice favoured the port rounding to the finish.
Alan came out top with 3 wins closely followed by Clive who also had 3 wins and was never out of the top 3, but obviously bettered by Alan who had more seconds. Dave beat Stuart for 3rd, on countback with 2 wins. Andrew was garbage suffering from some home boat tuning during the week that clearly didn’t work, getting caught in irons in the puffs too many times and a couple of unlucky races with a bag in the water and a wipeout downwind into the leeward mark while leading. Thanks to Dave for managing to take a few photos whilst trying to keep a straight course and also for putting the results together.
Six skippers got rigged for an afternoon of sun and sailing. Unfortunately the wind had eased from the morning DF65 session but the direction was similar with the wind swinging between North and West. A rig was the only choice. The same standard course was set as used in the morning. We were fortunate that Neil Westbrook popped down and volunteered to be our RO for the afternoon, and flexed his muscles on a couple of occasions to keep us in check.
It was great to see John Carlin on the water for the first time in quite a while and he didn’t hang around in race 1, showing that he hadn’t lost any of his touch by taking the win. Competition throughout the fleet was strong and 5 of the 6 helms had at least 1 race win, and this was demonstrated in the first 4 races with 4 different winners, John, Alan, Clive and Stuart. Only Steve missed out but did manage a third in race 3 before having to retire with rigging failure in race 4.
Clive then got into race mode and posted 2 firsts in races 5 and 6, before Andy found good boat speed to win race 7, meanwhile John continued his consistency posting 3 seconds whilst Alan picked up 2 thirds.
Sunny, T-shirt weather provided a good but tricky afternoon sailing. With the skill / luck, depending on your view, in picking the correct wind shift to tack on and which to leave could cost you dearly.
A decent entry of 11 boats for today, but in the end only nine competed. Neil couldn’t solve his electrical problems and both Martin W-J and Steve M opted not to sail on what was a very marginal B rig and mostly C rig day and they were lacking the right rig’s. At least we had Bill C to swell the numbers by an extra one. Dave W decided not to sail and run the racing instead, now with help from Neil and Steve M. This allowed Andy Mearns to sail by borrowing Dave’s C rig.
We do not get many days like this at Birkenhead with the wind nearly straight down the lake although as normal a few shifts (including false one’s) to test the sailors and allow for gains and losses around the course. The gusts were short lived and hardly ever over powered the C rig, but the B rig’s did suffer especially early on in the session. At least the sun was out for the first half which helped keep the sailors warm enough without jackets.
Peter set out his stall for the afternoon by winning races 1 and 2, although was a close run thing with Clive, Bill and Duncan hard on his heels. Bill then took Race 3 from John P who gamely raced with his B rig and after a few tweaks by Peter was going a lot better to lead round the first mark and pick up second. Peter then took races 4 and 5 with Clive close behind in both with a third each for John P and Bill. In the final race before the break, Clive got well away after a cracking start and neither Peter nor Bill could catch him for a deserved win.
For the second half, the wind had eased very slightly, but not enough to allow the B rigs to dominate, although those in C rigs were frustrated when the wind died away on the run and the B rigs powered through. Fortunately (for those in C rig), the gusts came back and the B rigs suffered upwind with John Pritchard picking up some decent results, but not enough to catch Bill overall. Peter continued on winning form with four of the six races in the afternoon, although Clive did take two wins and a couple of seconds.
As for the rest of the fleet, Duncan was having a problem with consistency and then had to pull out two races from the end with a broken mainsheet having picked up a number of third places. Andy and Stuart M continued with the sibling rivalry, with Andy (and his borrowed rig) edging out brother Stuart to beat him on countback. Dave Worron managed a second in Race 8, but struggled to get the best out of his B rig even after a few adjustments by Peter to help him on his way. Bill seemed to be a target for hook-ups, with a long hug of the windward mark and two incidents in the pre-start with boats trying to inadvertently take him out. Dave W fortunately stopped the clock both time and once untangled, racing continued with no damage caused.
A great afternoon’s racing in C rig which we only use occasionally at Birkenhead. Good practice for those windier days at more open waters. Peter took the day, with Clive in second and Bill in third. John Pritchard in a B rig ended up a creditable fourth, hopefully picking up a few setup tips along the way. Dave Worron captured this Race 2 start giving an idea of conditions.
