After a request by owners for some additional DF95 racing on a Saturday, six Saturday mornings have been added during the Summer Series to provide social racing between 10:15 and 12:00, prior to racing for other classes in the afternoon. This was the first Saturday in the programme, with the others listed in the main Calendar.
This week 9 sailors turned out to be met with a gusty SW/WSW breeze rather over the houses. Peter set out a starboard hand windward/leeward course diagonally across the lake and racing got underway soon after 10:15 with a fleet member monitoring the line and the winner writing the finish places down. Two laps were initially sailed, which we then reduced to one as the fleet became widely spread after two laps and we wanted to complete eight races by the finish.
The first leg was a mix of a reach or fetch and occasional big shifts requiring a short tack or even making it a run as we approached the windward mark. This was not an easy mornings sail, but most of the fleet had their moment of glory and a podium finish at some point during the morning.
Peter took the lions share of six wins from the 8 races completed, with Paul Plested and John Carlin having a win each. Paul took second overall with a more consistent set of results than John who placed third. Although Paul is listed as 154, he sailed with Peters spare rig (sporting 172 as well) after a boom failure earlier in the week.
Guy Cowper in only his second outing with the ’95, had a second and a couple of third places as he got to grips with the boat and the tricky breeze, but these were good enough to give him fourth overall. Alan wanted a good final race having scored a second and two thirds, but tried a bit too hard as he hooked Peter solidly on the start line, and the pair then collected Dave H for a short while. Dave H managed to extract himself and carry on whilst Alan and Peter drifted to the side and be separated. Meanwhile Dave W had a rudder servo fail after the rudder locked up in Race 6 and he had to sit out the final two races acting as RO and photographer until we finished.
The tactic, in the early races at least, was to sail on starboard tack from the line and clean the algae off the fins when the boats reached the bank. Likewise on the run, sailing close to the shore to give the boats a quick clean before sending them back out. Paul Plested seemed to have this down to a fine art and was able to score three bullets on the trot, with Charles Legg also showing great boat speed, scoring two 2nds in the first three races. James Douglas and Clive Warren also made into the top three in the early races. Paul Little managed a 3rd in the first race, but decided racing in the algae wasn’t for him and he decided to call it a day. John Carlin also didn’t fancy competing with the weed rather than other skippers and also packed up before finishing the first race.
For the second half of the morning, whilst the wind continued to swing, it did increase marginally with bigger lifts on starboard. This meant that trying to remove algae of the fins was tricker as it was a bigger detour both upwind and down and, as Paul found out, not necessarily worth the detour. James, after being close to the front in the first three races, managed to score three firsts on the bounce. Dave Williams managed a second in the fourth race, with Clive also taking 2nd in the final race. Paul P, whilst always being in the top 3, couldn’t match his scores of the earlier races.
On the day, with equal points and tied on countback, the outcome was decided on the last race, which James had won. Paul was 2nd overall and a well deserved third place went to Charles.
Thanks go to Neil Westbrook who ran the racing for the morning and to Dave W for skipping a race to take piccies.
It was good to see seven DF95s on the water for the afternoon session, particularly after the frustrations of the morning with the algae affecting the 65s. But we shouldnt have worried, the 95s handled the problem with only a slight drop in performance. The wind freshened a little from the morning but the direction remained the same, providing the typical shifts associated with Gautby Rd. It was also good to welcome Guy Cowper to the 95 fleet with his first outing in the 95 class.
Racing was super competitive from the start with 5 of the 7 skippers recording a top two finish, but it was Paul Plested who sailed consistently well and triumphed in the end with 6 wins, but behind him the real battle ensued between Alan, Clive and Neil with Guy showing good speed for a first outing but lacking a bit of consistency, which will surely come. Unfortunately Alan had to leave after race 4 otherwise the final positions would probably have been different. In the end it was Clives’ consistency that paid dividends over Neil.
It was also great to see Dave Howard at the club for the first time in months and kept his eye in by sailing a race with John Beeches boat, finishing a credible 5th and then took over RO duties for the last 3 races. Thanks Dave
Summary
Seven Df65 sailors were greeted with a gentle breeze down the lake from the clubhouse in what seemed tropical conditions compared to recent days.
The wind was a reasonable direction with all the usual shifts and flat patches to ensure it was never boring, resulting in places won and lost around the course.
Mike won the first and last race followed by John, Neil & Dave all taking it in turn to win. Paul & Richard also had good results with seconds & thirds.
The beats were challenging with holes and huge shifts near the windward mark so a good position was easily lost and last could easily come through the fleet. In other words Birkenhead at its best!!😄
The last beat from the leeward gate was not a procession with the far side often paying if you caught the shifts right. As the morning continued the winds increased with some spectacular nose drives near the gate resulting in further place changes that all added to the fun. Mike prevailed to win the mroning over John, who finished narrowly ahead of Neil in third. Thanks to Dave W for the photos once again and Malcolm for doing the results using A Fleet.
There were insufficient takers for a DF95 session after lunch once again.
A good afternoon?
A reduced roster of only seven sailors turned out for what was a decent afternoons sailing after checking out and clearing the pipework and weirs for the lake feeds (it was noted that there is a slow feed coming in when it rains).
It was a mid A Rig breeze with some occasional gusts to the top end of the rig, but also some light patches when the rain came through which necessitated the odd race or two being only one lap to keep race duration to a reasonable length. Fortunately some of the heaviest rain came whilst on our break, which was extended whilst we waited for the worst to pass over. The second session was the most pleasant with sunshine for most of the time.
The afternoon belonged to Peter with eight wins from the twelve races and nothing less than a second. We also had three other winners in John Carlin, Martin Whittingham-Jones and Clive Warren. John Carlin took overall second place with a consistent number of second and third places, whilst Alan lost oout to Clive on countback for fourth place, due to Clive’s win. John Beech had good boat speed and led a couple of races for a while, only losing out after getting the shifts wrong coming into the finish. Dave Williams struggled for boat speed for most of the day and then sadly had a brand new rudder servo fail after ten races, firmly rooting him in last place.
For ten races we self monitored the starts and had the leader record the finish, with Peter seemingly getting wriers cramp or something similar recording one boat twice and missing another one out completely in one race, so a bit of creative editing had to be undertaken!
An updated set of images from Dave – several missed when checking emails yesterday.
Neil Westbrook volunteered to be our RO for the morning and set a standard course of, windward mark, spreader, gate and a finish line half way up the lake and got us underway on time. Unfortunately before racing started Martin Whittington Jones had a winch servo problem which prevented him sailing for the day.
The wind, although looking virtually straight down the lake was in true Gautby road tradition was anything but, Although there weren’t many holes in the wind, there were plenty of shifts to catch the unsuspecting helm out, pick a wrong one and you could be headed for 20sec or more. The shifts were also not consistent, meaning there were plenty of opportunities to gain or lose places.
Clive was fast out of the blocks taking the first 3 races, although the pack were getting closer with each race. It was John Carlin who stopped Clive’s winning street in race 4 with the improving John Beech 2nd which started a consistent run of 2nds and 3rds for him over the next4 races. Meanwhile Clive was lucky to win race 5 when John C and Richard got tangled whilst leading nearing the windward mark. The inconsistent Dave W finally got a win in race 6. Race 8 and it was Richard who had finally got his boat moving who took the win, chased closely by Dave W and Clive. By this time the wind had gone up a notch and in the gusts the boats started to nosedive on the run .In the last 4 races line honours were split amongst the helms with John C taking 2 wins, John B 1 win and Dave W 1 win with him also having to retire in the last race with rudder servo issues
An early 10.30 start to allow time for some lake clean-up work between the DF65 and DF95 racing didn’t catch anybody out this week and all 10 sailors were ready for the first race. A+ rigs proved the right choice in a NW breeze blowing down the lake towards the clubhouse that averaged around 7knts with up to 12knt gusts. Last weeks lake cleanup had done a good job with the weed which didn’t appear to cause any problems this week. The standard course was used with a windward mark to port followed by the spreader mark, down through a leeward gate and back up to the finish
Pre-race impressions of the course suggested racing would be quite straight forward and it would be largely a boat speed day but the first beat of the first race gave a taste of the rest of the session with 20 degree wind shifts mixed in with puffs of wind that were quite localised …. so typical Gautby Rd. Nothing on the race course proved consistent …. sometimes it paid to tack on the shifts, at other times it was best to ignore them and hit a corner ….. sometimes the left side paid, sometimes the middle and sometimes the right …. starting at the starboard end of the line sometimes paid, but so did starting in the middle or port end of the line. Surprisingly, based on the puffy conditions, the downwind leg proved the most consistent part of the course with relatively few place changes taking place. What the conditions did mean, was that, particularly on the first beat, you were never out of the race, but that you could also lose a bunch of places by just being slightly in the wrong part of the lake.
Over the 10 races, Peter proved the most consistent to come 1st, winning 5 of them and never being out of the top 3 despite looking dead and buried halfway up the first beat in several races. John was reasonably consistent with 3 wins and able to discard 2 x 6th places to come second while James plodded around with a bunch of 2nds and only 1 result out of the top 5 to come third. Andrew was shockingly inconsistent winning 2 races but also having a load of mid fleet results to come 4th beating Alan into 5th on race win countback. Thanks to Dave Williams once again for remembering to take a few photos.