Nineteen Skippers began to assemble at the club soon after 8am when the Commodore opened up. With a forecast SW breeze veering to WSW or W, it was a surprise to see a light SE breeze blowing down the lake from the clubhouse. Sailing Sec Paul P offered to don the waders and put some marks out for what we anticipated might be the right course by the time we started at 10:00, but with a option for a separate course should the SE breeze continue to blow.
Soon after 9, the SW/WSW breeze started to form and later on during the practice session, some strong gusts started to make their way down the course, which bode well for the start of racing.
After a short briefing by Paul, racing got underway for the 12 home skippers and seven visitors on time at 10:00 and the first or four planned four race sessions started in a decent A rig breeze diagonally across the lake. An angled start line typically had plenty of port bias in it, but what looked like the favoured end was sometimes becalmed and so not as favoured, although some boats did manage to make it pay off when starting there.
In the first four races, it was usually just Birkenhead boats who managed to lead the pack around with some visitors finding either the conditions or fleet management tough going at the beginning. Martin Roberts stamped his immediate authority on the fleet by winning the first race, with John Brierley and Peter Baldwin making up the podium. Peter then took his first win in a good run of four consecutive wins, with John B, Paul Middleton, Paul Plested, Alan Watkinson and Martin R all making the podium.
After a drinks break, John B took two wins (Peter took the first) and Martin had one win, with the podium places going to most of those mentioned earlier, with the notable mention of visitor Martin Brennan (Dovestone SC) who, having led for most of Race 8, was unfortunately overtaken by Martin R close to the finish.
Over lunch the morning scores were totted up and Peter was leading on eight points, with Martin and John B tied on 12 and Martin just holding onto second. The afternoon session started well with the breeze holding up from the West, but with rain clouds building around us. We completed a further four races by 14:10 and were looking good to complete 16 by the 16:00 last race start time.
Race wins were shared by John B, Martin and Peter (2), with the podium places taken by the same three plus John Carlin and Alan, With Martin Brennan and David McKee (Dovestone SC) placing well, but not quite making it onto the podium. There were some very close finishes now with most sailors getting to grips with the conditions leading to some tricky times for the finishing team of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook.
The final session started with a dropping breeze which was also shifting back to WSW with light rain in the air, which increased in intensity during race two. Finally, during the third race, although starting in a very light breeze, it suddenly faded and there was very slow progress down the run (as set), which was anywhere from a run, to reach to a beat over the 10 minutes that we took to travel the 100m. Unfortunately, the rules do not allow for course shortening and so everyone had to stick it out to the bitter end and a race duration of 30 minutes or more. With the lake glassy from a lack of wind, there were no complaints about a slightly early finish with just 15 races completed. Peter took two of the final wins and Martin one, with David McKee picking up a second, with the other podium spots being taken by the lead three of Peter, Martin and John B. Visitors David McKee, Martin Brennan and Paul Middleton all had a fourth place, just misisng out on a podium spot. Full results below, but the prize winners were Peter Baldwin, Martin Roberts, John Brierley, Paul Plested and Paul Middleton who all picked up a well deserved bottle of wine.
Thanks were given to the Race team of Dave Williams and Neil Westbrook and the ladies running the galley all day providing hot drinks and keeping us fed with home made biscuits and flapjack.
It all happens again next week when the club hold the annual Strebor IOM Race on Saturday 8th November – entry via this link.
School half-term week attracted just 7 DF65 sailors …. which is strange since I can’t think of any regular sailors who are young enough to have school age children …. unless everybody was on grand parents duty instead … although nobody took the option to bring the grand children to Gautby Rd which might have provided some unplanned entertainment!
Those that did attend had an enjoyable morning with A+ rigs, 10 races and a (mostly) NW wind with regular puffs from a more westerly direction ensuring that the usual Gautby Rd jeopardy was in play in every race. The course comprised of a beat to the windward mark, around a spreader, back down the lake to a single leeward mark and up to the finish. There was no set pattern to the beats …. sometimes it paid to take a single port tack to the far bank while at other times it paid to take a hitch on starboard and hope to pick up one of the port lifting puffs. Downwind was just a case of being in the wind.
Charles lodged his complaint that racing was going to be dominated by James and Andrew while we were still rigging …. and then made himself look foolish by winning 2 out of the first 4 races. James decided to use his 2 discards when his main sheet came off the winch in race 2 but returned in time for race 4
After the first 4 races, Charles’s prophesy did come true with James and Andrew fighting for the top places while everybody else battled behind. James came out on top winning the last 4 races helped by Richard taking out Andrew in race 7, and some incompetent mark rounding by Andrew while leading in race 8.
Many thanks to Dave for being RO for most races and getting some photos in as well.
The wind was up and a chill in the air as arriving skippers readied themselves for the final round of this year’s IOM Summer series.
The predicted gusty WNW wind direction straight down the lake had the fleet split between managing the strongest gusts in B rig to capitalise in the lighter patches as opposed to driving hard with C rig and hanging on in the soft stuff.
As racing got underway, it was the B rigs of Rob McIntosh and Martin Roberts that showed the way with a 1-2 in an exhibition of top end sailing on the limits of control. Of the C rigs hurting a little in the confused chop were Bill Culshaw, Alan Bennett and Brad Gibson fighting to keep touch with the front two.
A total of 6 races were sailed up until a break for a warm cuppa with Martin winding back the clock to remind all that while form can be occasional, class is permanent with 4 firsts and a couple of 2nds back in his familiar Orange GBR 22 livery. Brad was the pick of the rest, a distance off the leader with one score outside of the top 3 with Alan, Rob and Bill finding it difficult to hit consistent scores.
After the break and with all skippers now on B rigs, it was Brad who took the challenge to Martin with 4 firsts over 6 races. Both Alan and Martin took a win apiece with Rob and Bill taking top 3 placings.
With 12 races complete and with his worst score being a third over the day, it was a thoroughly deserved win on 16 points to Martin by a point over Brad in second and Alan Bennett in third.
All agreed it was a testing but thoroughly enjoyable days racing and we thank our PRO (and photographer) Dave Williams for taking us through it seamlessly.
This was the last of this years Summer Series for the DF and RG65 fleets, although in common with just about every other week, there were only six RG65’s out and no DF65’s. The wind continued where it left off after the morning session with the DF95’s. The direction remained pretty well down the lake on average with some big shifts to exploit along with some holes to find. Expecting the breeze to build rather than die, most people sailed the first session with B rigs, although some were on low aspect A, with amix of both swing and conventional rigs.
The afternoon belonged to Alan’s Ivy with twelve straight wins. Peter worked hard to try and keep up and occasionally did hold the lead for a while, but Alan soon seemed to overhaul him. This was especially so in the first session of six races when Peter had a smaller/lower B rig compared to the other boats. The wind failed to build leaving him struggling for speed at times.
George and Dave were closely matched in this first session, so much so that after six races they were tied on points for the third/fourth places. Duncan sailing a new to him Goth, was struggling for boat speed as the B swing rig was definitely underpowered. The A rig was thought to be too big for the conditions in the first session, but did trade up for the second one, but was then over pressed in the gusts!
There were seven Df95 sailors out for this additional morning of Social Racing in a decent A rig breeze from the clubhouse end which was at times quite gusty, making it a little cool.
Peter took the lions share of the wins with one of them a tie with John Carlin as we couldn’t separate them. That’s the problem with trying to spot finishers whilst sailing. John C, buoyed by this shared win went one better with a deserved win in the next race as well. It was generally very close at the front of the fleet, with only a rare occasion when Peter pulled away to finish by a clear margin. So Peter took the win and John C was clear ahead in second.
Phyl started off the day with a couple of poor results, but then Peter tweaked his setup to make the best of the rig sheeting positions and transformed his boat speed with a number of 3rd and 4th’s and even a 2nd in race 9. He was having a great tussle with John Beech and they ended the morning after 11 races tied, with Phyl just edging out John B with more 4th’s
Martin had some great starts and was often well placed at the first mark, but dropped back during the one lap races to end up fifth overall. Duncan Neale had a good start and was up with the leaders for a few races until his transmitter battery had enough and ended his day. Fortunately, he then took over RO duties and took the photos for this session, so thanks for that Doncan.
A rather depleted field today with only six skippers showing up for the morning DF65 session – possibly deterred by the forecast for very light wind and a rather cold autumn morning.
The start was at the far end with a good direction for the beat, but a line that was well and truly starboard biased. However the starts were all incident free with everyone keen to avoid any boat to boat issues as it was hard to get moving again if you did.
Further back Dave W sailed consistently to claim third in the very variable conditions followed by Clive and Mike with a more variable set of results. Clive beat Mike on countback with Dave White showing much better speed and getting into the mix as well.