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!
After twelve races we called an end to the afternoon, with Alan clearly the winner and Peter clear in second. George ended the afternoon two points ahead of Alan who had a better second session to pull away from Dave and land fourth, with Dave fifth and Duncan sixth. Thanks go to Neil for running the first six races and to Dave for losing out in one race to take some photos of the racing.
- Alan Bennett Ivy 68 10pts
- Peter Baldwin Uno 63 21pts
- George Bennett Uno 71 36pts
- Alan Watkinson Uno 23 38pts
- Dave Williams Uno 33 41pts
- Duncan Neale Goth 30 47pts
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.
A great turnout of 12 DF65 skippers for todays social racing. Also a pleasure to welcome Andy and Stuart Mearns who have been sailing Victoria class yachts at Ashton park in West Kirby, but who came to have a look at Gautby Road and think about DF sailing.
The club marks were somewhat disorganised after the very heavy weather, and new ground tackle was needed for a couple as well as some repositioning. Mdsp went for a fairly extensive paddle, and although the start looked OK early on, the wind then went right and made the line very starboard biased.
With such a good turnout and pretty much only one place to be on the line it was crowded to say the least, and it was tricky to see all the boats clearly, resulting in some contact. There was talk of resetting the line but no one seemed keen to go for another paddle.
Peter was class of the field with four wins, including being tagged a couple of times so very much deserved the win. Racing was very close indeed overall, and although the wind blew more or less straight down the lake it remained very shifty, with some holes despite some quite decent pressure.
Behind Peter the next 5 or 6 boats swapped places and remained very close. In the end Mike dsp edged away slightly to hold second leaving Clive, John and James tied on points for third / fourth / fifth, and then Paul, Andrew and Alan in 6th / 7th and 8th within 5 points. Close racing.
Racing was close right from the start, with Peter, Clive and Ian all showing good boat speed, and generally ahead of Alan, Duncan, John and Malcolm who were having their own private battle with the occasional skirmish into the podium positions.
Peter eventually coming out on top with 5 wins, but he didn’t have it all his own way with Clive taking 2 wins and Ian with a very consistent 1 win and 6 seconds. Alan finished best of the rest with 3 third places but didn’t have the consistency of the top 3.
After 8 races, (providing 2 discards) Peter, Ian and Malcolm had to leave, as the sun was shinning and the wind for once was behaving itself at Gautby Rd the remaining 4 decided to have a bit more enjoyment and have 2 more races just for bragging rights the results of which are not included in the final results.
A disappointingly small turnout of 8 skippers for a session that started with great A+ rig conditions but unfortunately became curtailed as the wind swung from south-east (down the lake) to south and disappeared completely after 6 races. It was a bad start to the day for Andrew, who following last weeks hull failure when the sail control turning block pulled out the hull, then had the backstay fitting pull out the hull leaving a gaping hole in the stern and nothing to connect the backstay to. A rawl plug and screw were the ultimate bodge job with bits of tape used (unsuccessfully as it would prove) to fill the gaps around the plug
The normal course was used with a beat to the windward mark, across to a spreader, back down the lake to the downwind gate and back up to the finish line. The initial plan was for everybody to do each race and the winner then record the results but somehow Dave managed to pull the clew out of his sail during the first race leaving him to volunteer for RO for the rest of the session
The racing was typical Gautby Rd … any lack of boatspeed could be overcome if you got in the right part of the lake for the next shift or puff, and there wasn’t any particular pattern in either shifts or puffs. Surprisingly, the downwind legs were reasonably consistent with little overtaking going on
Alan dominated with 4 wins, followed by John with 2 wins. Clive was very inconsistent but scrambled 3rd place from Andrew, who had to refill the lake from his boat after each race … a process that got worse as the wind dropped and the races took longer. Luckily for Andrew, the wind disappeared quickly, enabling Dave to put an end to the racing, rather than subjecting Andrew to a complete drifter which could have been terminal. Thanks to Dave for being RO in 5 races and for taking the pic’s.
The light breeze from the morning disappeared for the afternoon DF95 session and became an even lighter breeze but with a lot more shifts and holes to fall into, and to add to the difficulty it couldn’t decide which end of the lake to blow from. The same windward / leeward course as the morning was set and the 6 skippers were ready on time to get underway at 13:30. With only 6 boats it was the usual self monitoring start and first to finish recorded the results.
Race 2 – Ian carried on his winning streak, but this time it was Johns turn to push him all the way to the finish line, Martin following up his 2nd in the first race with a 3rd in this.
