Category: dragonforce

The forecast didn’t look to promising for wind once again this week and combined with thick fog early on, it seems to have kept a few at home with only 7 takers for racing.  As it turned out, we had a light ENE to SE breeze (and a bit of mist) which built slightly around 12:00 befor dropping back by the end of sailing.  A total of 8 races were completed with about five of these using a shortened course using only half the lake with the remainder using the whole lake when the breeze picked up.

With the low turnout we self policed the start line and finishing, although Dave did keep a watch on the start line to ensure no major premature pre-starters.  We did have two general recalls, but that was simply because twice (the same!) two boats forgot which pair of marks we were using for the start line as there had been a few changes during the morning. At least this way nobody got caught out by the premature starters returning to start correctly.

We had four different race winners during the morning, although Peter did pick up the bulk of four wins such that one bright spark quipped “will you be getting writers cramp soon?” when writing down the fourth set of results.  All good fun with some close racing on a day when picking the right way to go was not always obvious.  Dave Williams had a great first leg in race 8 having tacked early off the line, picking up a line of breeze and although Peter was catching up by the finish he held onto his lead through to the end.  The time was getting on by the end of Race 8 and as it was raining steadily by now, we decided to call it a day. Full results below, with thanks to Malcolm for plugging them in after finishing.

A gentle A rig breeze from the Clubhouse end greeted todays fleet of DF95 sailors.  We had hoped for 12 boats on the start line, but unfortunately some last minute technical issues precluded two sailors from starting and so they very kindly ran the racing and scoring instead.  In addition, a dropped turn on the boat of Dave Williams led to both himself and his helper Alan missing the first race with RO Neil Westbrook starting on time at 12:00.

Race 1 and 2 had the first three boats in the same finishing positions with Peter taking two wins and John Brierley second place.  John B then won Race 3 after Peter was called OCS, although he did recover to third behind John Carlin in second.  John C then went one better to win Race 4 swapping places with John B (Peter picked up another OCS call and had to return once again losing vital time!).  Martin, meanwhile had a technical issue and missed these two races.  He made up for it in Race 5 with a second to Peters win and then John B won Race 6, this being the last race before a break for an early lunch as Neil had decided to run races as just a single lap as the fleet was often well separated even after one lap.

At the break, the top 3 was Peter first on countback from John Brierley and John Carlin in third.

The second session after lunch saw the breeze drop for a few races, before picking up again for the final couple of races.  There were however some big wind shifts and holes that could easily  catch you out and result in a lead change before the windward mark.

The afternoon session belonged to Martin and Peter, who shared the wins between them. with John B seemingly off the pace with both his discards in this second session.  The results probably don’t show it, but the fleet was often closely contested up the first beat with at least half the fleet often rounding in close contention, with Alan and John C well in the mix. Also, after some boat adjustments from Martin earlier in the afternoon amd from Peter at the break, saw Phyl keeping up with the fleet and picking up a good result in Race 11.

When Malcom had worked out the final scores, Peter ran out the clear winner, with Martin powering through into second place after the second session results, with John B having to settle for third.  Many thanks to Neil and Malcom for running the racing and getting the scores ready soon after we finished.

A lovely day at Gautby road for the first DF65 social racing day of 2025 – blue sky and sun but alas almost no wind – and an excellent turnout of twelve racers. All the ice from last week had disappeared leaving a large armchair in the lake just below the start area.

Armchair? Why was it there we might ask…..armchair ice curling practice? / it seemed a good idea at the time? / why?  – answers on a postcard please.

Having decided not to sail all the races John Carlin very kindly went paddling and retrieved it, assisted by Paul Little (who very sensibly stayed on the bank to supervise) but John reported that there is more debris in that area which will need to be removed as soon as practicable.

Back to the sailing which looked unlikely when we all arrived as there was hardly a breath of wind. A very, very light S.Easterly breeze did come in, but all of the mornings sailing was a real dead slow and stop drifting match.

Dave set a short course using the start line which was good for the wind direction, the finish buoy as a windward mark, the outer start mark as a leeward mark and then back to the usual finish line. Races were taking more than 15 minutes on this course giving an indication of just how light conditions were.

Having said all this the racing was really very good with four different winners for the four races completed, with the first three boats covered by one point as shown below. Neil sailed very well having missed the first race and his 1,2,2 results were good enough to win from Paul P who in turn beat Mikedsp on countback.

After four races the general consensus was that enough was enough, and a finish was called. Thanks to Dave for ROing (and being chief photographer) and, as always, for doing the results, and finally thanks again to John and Paul L for removing the lake debris.

1. Neil Westbrook                5 pts       1 win
2. Paul Plested                      6 pts       1 win   (ahead on countback)
3. Mike de St Paer               6 pts        1 win
4. Clive Warren                  10 pts        1 win
5. Charles Legg                  14 pts
6. Alan Watkinson            16 pts
7. Richard Walker             16  pts                   (ahead on countback)
8. Frans King                     21 pts
9. David White                  23 pts
10. Malcolm Harvey         30 pts                  (ahead on countback)
11. John Carlin                    30 pts                  (rtd after R1)
12. Paul Little                      39 pts

This last day of sailing in 2024 at the club, proved to be one to blow the cobwebs away.  As we arrived, the tail end of a squall gave heavy rain and strong gusts such that a C rig looked to be on the cards, but soon after the wind abated and we started on B rigs after Peter had tweaked the marks a little to align with the Westerly breeze.  It was nearly straight down the lake but had some strong gusts from over the houses.  Big shifts and the potential for stalling the boat was very likely at any point during the afternoon and so the key task was to keep it moving at all times.

In the first session of six races before the break we had five different winners, in the form of Peter Baldwin, Paul Plested, John Brierley, Martin Roberts and visitor Paul Middleton, with only John racking up two wins.  The wind abated at one point such that we really needed A rigs as we bobbed up and down waiting for the next gust.  However, this was very short lived and by the start of the next race B rig was the right one to be using once more.

After the break, conditions were very similar for around three races, until the gusts started to increase in strength.  The forecasts were suggesting at least double in the gusts and that looked to be the case with plenty of nose-diving and occasional loss of control.  That is until the last race when the average picked up a notch during the race and we were into survival mode for the remainder, leading to some lost places for those who couldn’t tack away from the far bank.  This session belonged to John as he notched up 4 wins, with Martin and Peter taking the other two.  This gave John an easy win on 14 points with Martin second on 21 and Peter third on 25.

Thanks go to Neil for running the afternoon and to Dave for helping him out and scoring the day after some electrical problems during the afternoon led to few race finishes for him.  Photos from Dave Williams and Paul Plested.

1. John Brierley              84  14pts
2. Martin Roberts         184  21pts
3. Peter Baldwin           172  25pts
4. Paul Middleton          06  34pts
5. Paul Plested               154  48pts
6. John Carlin                  50  55pts
7. Alan Watkinson        23   58pts

 

Southerly breeze today – more or less as forecasted – from the clubhouse corner, which slowly filled in after looking very unpromising as DF65 racers were arriving. Although forecast to build significantly during the morning, this never quite happened and the breeze varied up and down quite a bit with some fairly significant shifts as well.

Mike dsp was quick out of the blocks to win the first three races but then slightly lost his way after a race RO duty when normal business was resumed with John B winning the next three before he had to leave to catch up with work. The next three races had three different winners with JohnC, Clive and Mike taking the last three.

Racing, and particularly the starts, was all very close, with a few OCS calls during the morning and once again, although the start looked somewhat starboard end biased, skippers were able to take different sides of the beat during the morning to get to the top mark in the leading group. The last beat up from the leeward gate also proved interesting with different gate marks paying off at different times for the beat back to the line.

Following JohnB’s departure Mike dsp was able to hold on to win, with very close racing reflected in the points across the fleet with 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th covered by 5 points (and some less than one point differences when averages for RO were used), and then 7^th to 10^th by less than 5.

Overall results as shown below with the usual thanks to Dave for getting everything going and Malcolm for working out the results (with a bit of help from AFleet!).

1. Mike de St Paer           10.3 pts  4 wins
2. John Carlin                    16 pts     1 win
3. Clive Warren                22 pts    1 win
4. John Brierley               27 pts  3 wins
5. Richard Robinson     27 pts
6. Simon Bates                37.7 pts
7. Paul Little        .            44.6  pts
8. Sally Collings              44.6 pts
9. Richard Walker          46.9 pts
10. Dave Williams            48.7 pts
11. Charles Legg               53.9 pts
12. Malcolm Harvey        64.9 pts
13. Frans King                    82   pts