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Category: rg65

RG65 & DF65 Winter Series #2 Report & Results

A nice 6 to 8 knots straight down the lake from the clubhouse greeted the 10 sailors today for the second of the RG65 & DF65 Winter Series.  There were four visitors (only 3 sailing) from Gresford who helped swell the DF65 fleet to 5 and five club Pocket Rocket’s competing in the RG65 section.  Racing got underway very shortly after 12:00 with a Windward/Leeward course and separate windward marks for each fleet, well set-out by John Brierley.

In the DF65 fleet, Richard Robinson had the best day winning eight of the eleven races, with visitor David Bradley pushing him hard later in the day for two wins and the final win taken by Andrew Peter, before he had to leave early.  As the light faded Richard was a clear winner on 10 points, David second on 19 and Bob Andrews (Gresford) in third, only three points ahead of Russel Owens (Gresford), who improved markedly during the day to be one of the top three at the end.

The RG65 fleet ended up being a two way fight for the top spot between Peter Baldwin and John Brierley, although both Neil Westbrook and Alan Watkinson also had spells at the front of the fleet during many of the races.  At the end, Peter scraped the overall win with six firsts to John’s five, having overtaken John in the last race just30 metres to the line.  A day of very close racing much of the time, with no clear indication of the “right way” up the beat and lots of guessing going on which sometimes paid off.  A day that ended with only a light 3 knot breeze when a light keel seemed to pay off.

Thanks once again to Bernie for running the racing today – the last racing at Birkenhead in 2019.  See you in 2020 on January 8th (DF65) or 11th (IOM)

DF65 Fleet

  1. Richard Robinson           01      10pts
  2. David Bradley                    98     19pts
  3. Rob Andrews                     835    30pts
  4. Russel Owens                    903    33pts
  5. Andrew Peter                     919    38pts

RG65 Fleet

  1. Peter Baldwin                    63      12pts
  2. John Brierley                     84       13pts
  3. Alan Watkinson                23       26pts
  4. Neil Westbrook                  03      33pts
  5. David Williams                  33       41pts

Additional RG65/DF65 Open Events over the Winter

Following the AGM discussion, three more dates have been allocated to RG65/DF65 open events over the Winter on a Saturday.  The dates are in the Calendar as:

  1. Saturday 21st December
  2. Saturday 18th January
  3. Saturday 15th February

The start time will be 12:00 with no start scheduled to be after 16:00.  Visitors are most welcome.  Clubhouse open from approximately 11:00, with hot drinks available .

Winter Series 2019/2020 for IOM and RG65/DF65

The dates for this years Winter Series have now been published in the 2019 Calendar.

This year there will be a series of 8 afternoons of racing for IOM’s starting on the 9th November.  This follows the Strebor IOM meeting which takes place on the 26th October (Start time 10:00).  In addition, there is also the Xmas Race on 14th December which will this year again be raced in the IOM class (Start Time 10:30)

Due to the success of the RG65/DF65 race days over the Summer, it has been decided that there will also be some events for these classes.  The first of these will take place on Saturday 26th October.

With the reduced light conditions during the Winter, each race day will start at 12:00 rather than the summer time of 13:00, in the hope that this will allow a good number of races to be run before the light goes. No race will start after 16:00.

As a final reminder, the last two afternoons in the Summer Series of IOM racing take place on Saturday the 5th and 19th October.  The last in the series has been changed from 12th October due to a clash with other events.

RG65/DF65 Race #5 28/9/19

A wet and windy day greeted competitors for the last RG65 series race.  Four Pocket Rockets and one DF65 sailed the same course this week with the wind coming out of the Top left hand corner. Seven races were completed by the tea break with everyone in B Rigs, when Neil had to leave early and then 3 more were sailed after tea in A Rigs to complete the day.

Racing was very close with Dave showing good speed to register 3 wins with John taking out the other races.  Alan with a new conventional A rig he has made,was also showing good speed on the race course.

With the 10 races completed an extended final race was held for a bit of fun, with the only DF 65 sailed by Andrew leading for most of the race only to be pipped at the post by the RG65 of John.

Thanks go again to Bernie and Jack for running the races on such a wet afternoon.

RG
1st John Brierley          9pts
2nd Dave Williams    15pts
3rd Alan Watkinson  20pts
4th Neil Westbrook   29pts

DF
Andrew Peter                27pts

Series results are available on the Current Standings page

RG65/DF65 Race #4 31/8/19

A torrential downpour greeted seven (six RG and one DF) sailors as they arrived or rigged their boats.  Thank goodness for the shelter of the clubhouse.  Fortunately the rain did not last for long and it was on a weather front that rapidly changed the wind from Southerly to Westerly within 45 minutes.  This enabled a good windward/leeward course to be set down the lake using the marks as set. With no additional competition arriving the one DF sailor decided not to sail and so left six RG65’s to start the day.

After the first four races, Peter and John Brierley shared the honours with two wins and two seconds each.  With the wind at 10 knots and gusting easily 15, both had opted for a low aspect A rig which helped in the gusty conditions.  After a short break and the arrival of Graham Elliott, John B managed two further wins, before John Tushingham found his groove and posted his first win in Race 7 and the two of them shared the wins through until Race 16, with Graham taking a number of seconds.  At the end of 16 races completed by 16:30, John B was the winner, John T second and Graham third. Three designs shared the podium, with rig selection and setup for the conditions in each race a determining factor on the end result. Thanks to Bernie and Ernie for running the races.

  1.  John Brierley           Pocket Rocket     19 pts
  2. John Tushingham  Scurry                    26 pts
  3. Graham Elliott         Electronica           37 pts
  4.  Peter Baldwin          Pocket Rocket      42 pts
  5. Neil Westbrook        Pocket Rocket       55 pts
  6. Alan Watkinson       Pocket Rocket       68 pts
  7. Dave Williamson     Pocket Rocket       77 pts

Next and final event in the series is on Saturday 28th September with a later start time of 13:00.