Sixteen skippers, including four visitors from other clubs, turned up to compete for the Jack Turner Trophy, which was being raced for the first time in honour of a longstanding club member who had originally joined the club in circa 1955, and who sadly passed away in late 2024.
The forecast for the day was for a S to SW building breeze, which is always a challenging direction racing at Gautby Road with wind blowing across rather than along the lake. However, as folks set about rigging and then testing their set up, the winds looked promising for this inaugural event with a light breeze blowing from the E/ESE virtually straight down the lake. Alas this wind evaporated as the planned start time of 10am came and went. When the breeze did eventually start to build from the forecast direction the challenge for the race team was in setting the course with either end of the lake being suitable for a start at some point as as the wind continued to swing.
After one general recall the racing finally got underway at around 10:55 with a standard 2 lap windward/leeward course with an unavoidable heavily starboard biased beat towards the clubhouse. The challenge for the skippers, as it was for most of the day, was less about picking the shifts and more about deciding which race track to take. Stay away from the windward shore and risk not laying the windward mark or being sailed over, or climb to windward with the greater chance of being becalmed. As the day progressed the former was usually, but not always, the best way to go. By race two and for the rest of the day, the start line moved to the clubhouse end, with a now heavy port bias on the first leg. By lunchtime, the wind had built and by mid afternoon the gusts were ripping across the lake or coming straight down, interspersed with calmer patches. At the starts the decision for skippers was, increasingly, whether to hold a starboard right of way position and then tack at the gun or look for a gap on port and hit the line at speed. Some mastered this better than others.
Without providing a blow by blow account of every race there were some stand out performances on the day, lessons learned by some as well as incidents of interest.
Roger Crates, who had travelled over from the East Coast, had two wins on the day and may have finished higher up the leader board if he hadn’t opted for his B rig during a mid afternoon tea break. It was looking good on the first beat, but despite A riggers nose-diving and broaching at times, the calmer patches meant the A rig was the rig to be on as he was swallowed up on the first downwind leg. Needless to say, he only did one race on it.
In race five, and perhaps fittingly on such a day, Brad handed the controls of his boat to one of Jack’s young great grandchildren. Under Brad’s guidance he finished 8th!
Prizewinners were:
