Nine competitors for the DF95 afternoon race. The light wind from just about over the houses at the top end of the lake. It was also warm, so what could go wrong? Unfortunately, the algae seemed to like the fins on the 95’s which caused extreme frustration. Joining us from The Great Orme club was Mathew Pritchard, with this his first competitive race.
Racing started on time with the usual course starting at the Clubhouse end, windward and spreader mark to starboard down through the gate and finish halfway up the lake. The first race saw the only call over of the day with Guy just pushing it to extreme, lesson learned. This race saw Ian taking a commanding lead to the first mark with John Br. catching him on the run to the gate but then losing it over the final lap. It was decided to go to one lap after a long 25 min race.
With the boats moving slowly in the light wind, allowing the algae to coat the fin and lead keel. This caused great frustration so we lost two sailors early on. The next race saw a new leader with Dave taking honours from Mr consistent John Brierley ( he managed 4 seconds) before also retiring. Race three saw Ian take another win with Alan and Dave fighting for third. Race 4 saw Alan take the win. Race 5 saw John Beech. come in to his own taking an easy win.
At the break the constant uncertainty of the algae situation saw us lose another two sailors. Mathew was given a little tuning advice during this time which he promptly put to good use on the next five races. Guy refreshed after the break took the next race from Mathew with one of the closest finishes of the day.
The next race saw Alan’s rudder servo burn out and then we were down to 4. We decided to carry on to complete 10 races which suited Mathew taking three firsts. John unfortunately seem to struggle with the algae problems even though the wind had now picked up. Overall Mathew took the event by one point from Dave. Thanks go to Dave for acting RO and for the few photos.
A great start to the sailing day with a crisp N. Westerly blowing straight down the lake. Despite the sun the wind felt distinctly chilly sending a few skippers back for some extra layers. There was a bit of chop at the leeward end of the lake but the wind action seemed to have reduced the algae, and no boats appeared to suffer any effects from this during the morning’s racing.
The usual course format was agreed with two of the rather random selection of leeward end marks providing an almost perfect start line. As there were only eight skippers a single leeward mark was agreed to save resetting the gate and this worked OK.
Mike got away quickly with three wins in a row, but then John – who had suffered a coming together in race three – made a couple of tweaks and was immediately much faster winning four of the last five races. There were some significant shifts to play with, and then a tricky area approaching the top mark resulting in a few games of musical chairs in some of the races which materially altered the rounding positions.
The breeze stayed in at top end of B rig levels giving some great sailing and the odd downwind nose dive. There was also quite a bit of inadvertent minor contact and a couple of entanglements due to the rather gusty conditions but no damage. Alan missed race seven after discovering a leak in the battery hatch cover and Charles and Andrew missed some of the races for other reasons.
After the inaugural DF95 Social Racing, some (such as your author) were hoping that the warm temperatures might lead to a sea breeze swinging the gradient more to the West. However, this was not to be and the afternoon continued with the same gusty SW/WSW breeze that became more Southerly as the afternoon progressed. We sailed with the same course as the 95’s in the morning under the watchful eyes of Neil Westbrook and Dave Williams as our RO team.
Most of the ten sailors opted for their A rig in the first session of five races, with Brad sporting a B rig to get some time on the water with it as most of our racing has recently been in A rigs, including all the Ranking events completed to date.
Peter took the first race after getting off the line on Port in a gust and staying in front of Brad and Martin who were chasing hard. Martin then took wins in races two and three with Brad second and Robbie Mac and Peter taking thirds. Then Brad’s decision to go for the B rig paid off as some strong gusts led to big knockdowns for everyone else and he picked up two wins with Peter, Alan and Martin taking the podium positions, with Robbie Mac missing three races due to a boat problem. There were some good performances from Guy Cowper and John Beech, with young Noah plugging away and getting some decent results, including rounding the first mark in second in one race after a great start.
We then had an early break and most opted to change down to B with just Martin and Phyl sticking with A on the restart (Phyl didn’t have a B for his borrowed boat unfortunately).
After the break, results continued to be dominated by the same names as before with Brad taking two of the last seven races and Martin five. However, Martin did also quickly change down to B as the gusts picked up in intensity. Although short lived, they were difficult to survive and usually left you pointing in the wrong direction and 20 – 30m lost on the other boats if you did succomb. These wins gave Martin the overall win, with Brad second and Peter third.
Podium spots (other than the two racee winners mentioned) were taken by Robbie and Peter with Alan not far behind (tricky for Dave with photo finishes between Peter and Alan in a few races). Phyl coped well in his A rig picking up a sixth in race 9. Thanks must go to Neil and Dave for running the racing once again and dave for taking the photos for illustrating this report.
After a request by owners for some additional DF95 racing on a Saturday, six Saturday mornings have been added during the Summer Series to provide social racing between 10:15 and 12:00, prior to racing for other classes in the afternoon. This was the first Saturday in the programme, with the others listed in the main Calendar.
This week 9 sailors turned out to be met with a gusty SW/WSW breeze rather over the houses. Peter set out a starboard hand windward/leeward course diagonally across the lake and racing got underway soon after 10:15 with a fleet member monitoring the line and the winner writing the finish places down. Two laps were initially sailed, which we then reduced to one as the fleet became widely spread after two laps and we wanted to complete eight races by the finish.
The first leg was a mix of a reach or fetch and occasional big shifts requiring a short tack or even making it a run as we approached the windward mark. This was not an easy mornings sail, but most of the fleet had their moment of glory and a podium finish at some point during the morning.
Peter took the lions share of six wins from the 8 races completed, with Paul Plested and John Carlin having a win each. Paul took second overall with a more consistent set of results than John who placed third. Although Paul is listed as 154, he sailed with Peters spare rig (sporting 172 as well) after a boom failure earlier in the week.
