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:
An early 10.30 start to allow time for some lake clean-up work between the DF65 and DF95 racing didn’t catch anybody out this week and all 10 sailors were ready for the first race. A+ rigs proved the right choice in a NW breeze blowing down the lake towards the clubhouse that averaged around 7knts with up to 12knt gusts. Last weeks lake cleanup had done a good job with the weed which didn’t appear to cause any problems this week. The standard course was used with a windward mark to port followed by the spreader mark, down through a leeward gate and back up to the finish
Pre-race impressions of the course suggested racing would be quite straight forward and it would be largely a boat speed day but the first beat of the first race gave a taste of the rest of the session with 20 degree wind shifts mixed in with puffs of wind that were quite localised …. so typical Gautby Rd. Nothing on the race course proved consistent …. sometimes it paid to tack on the shifts, at other times it was best to ignore them and hit a corner ….. sometimes the left side paid, sometimes the middle and sometimes the right …. starting at the starboard end of the line sometimes paid, but so did starting in the middle or port end of the line. Surprisingly, based on the puffy conditions, the downwind leg proved the most consistent part of the course with relatively few place changes taking place. What the conditions did mean, was that, particularly on the first beat, you were never out of the race, but that you could also lose a bunch of places by just being slightly in the wrong part of the lake.
Over the 10 races, Peter proved the most consistent to come 1st, winning 5 of them and never being out of the top 3 despite looking dead and buried halfway up the first beat in several races. John was reasonably consistent with 3 wins and able to discard 2 x 6th places to come second while James plodded around with a bunch of 2nds and only 1 result out of the top 5 to come third. Andrew was shockingly inconsistent winning 2 races but also having a load of mid fleet results to come 4th beating Alan into 5th on race win countback. Thanks to Dave Williams once again for remembering to take a few photos.
It all started at rigging up before the race when Alan had a bit of mishap with his batteries, plenty of smoke and burnt out cables but miraculously after this the radio gear fired up with a new set of batteries and off we went to sail.
The wind was constant with large gusts so we all chose our ‘B’ rigs but this wind direction then decided to sort of turn around and come from the houses aswell as other places at times. The first 6 races before tea break belonged to Alan for sure.
Tea break and we all changed up to our bigger rigs as the wind dropped a little and the gusts did die down a little, we also came out to a nice Everton blue flare that someone had left lakeside, obviously testing the colour before the Liverpool celebrations on Monday. First race after tea and we all fell over on the downwind leg so back to the club and change down for the next 5 races. Graham did make a better effort in the second half but the day belonged to Alan for sure. A returning Gary Benson to the club and RG racing had a great afternoon and deserved his podium finish, George got caught out a few times with his rig choice but did manage a trio of third places in races 5 through to seven. A good battle all through the fleet was great to see.
Many thanks must go to Neil Westbrook for starting and finishing us all afternoon and Dave Williams for the photos. After 12 races the final results were as follows:
Another lovely day at Gautby road with sunshine, blue sky, and a quite penetrating NWest or WNWesterly breeze blowing straight down the lake. Sailing Sec. PaulP had asked for an early start today to allow some time for a clean up after the 65’s, and another excellent turnout of 10 skippers were there with James and Phyl a tad late, missing the first few races
Neil “I like a good discard” very kindly agreed to RO the morning’s sailing, and got started promptly using the usual course. Gate and line worked well during the morning, with the line perhaps pin end biased but the gate paying off at different ends at different times.
Only a few light zephyrs of breeze were apparent whilst boats were practising leading up to the 13:00 start. Unfortunately this included winds from the general direction of both East and West. Coming up to start time, the predominant wind was Easterly and so Peter and Dave agreed to start at the far end.
All was looking good during the countdown until 15 seconds before the start when….. the wind switched off and we started on a run. This direction remained for the whole race, making for an interesting time to sail the right course, with a windward gate and a leeward mark and spreader! The race was taken by John Brierley aided in part by Peter thinking there was a run to go before finishing on a beat! Alan picked up third close behind Peter.
By the time of the next start a decent westerly breeze had set in which had some very odd short shifts as a gust rolled down the course, but produced a good A rig sailing day. The sun was out but the breeze was cool leading to most sailors wearing two layers rather the expected single layer.
The day became mostly a shoot out between Peter and John Brierley, with Peter picking up five firsts and John taking four. They did not have it all their own way however with Paul Little taking two wins and a second place with Neil Westbrook a win and second. Although Alan didn’t pick up a race win during the afternoon, he did sail consistently with a second and a number of third places to take third overall. Neil’s win helped lower his overall score and place him in fourth ahead of John Carlin, who had a number of third places, but wasn’t as consistent as Neil and Alan, dropping him into fifth. Unfortunately after winning a couple of races, Paul Little didn’t finish two races and so had to count some lower places, narrowly dropping him down the overall positions. Ian Davies had placed well in the first session of six races, but missed the second session and dropped him out of the overall running.
Overall a great afternoon for sailing and a good turnout of eleven sailors, who in the main took it in turns to act as RO for eleven races, with the final race start watched over by Peter and kindly finished by Paul. Photos from Dave Williams (Race 1) and Peter (Race 3).
A real Gautby road day today for the ten 65’s. Lovely sunshine, and a bit of breeze blowing gently from wherever you thought it wouldn’t be, but sort of from the top corner opposite the clubhouse. The usual course format was used starting from the far end with a line which, as so often, looked pin end biased but starters on a number of races from that end either found a flat spot or got headed as they came back out on port– but not all the time.
Peter proved master of the conditions despite being becalmed on at least one occasion, albeit in the right place, and ran out a clear winner with five firsts over ten races. Alan sailed consistently well counting three wins to finish second, three points clear of Paul with one win.
These front three were comfortably clear of the pack, although there was close racing further down the order as well. The course was slightly shortened after race seven to squeeze in the last three races in time but this didn’t seem to affect the front three as shown in the full results below.
Thanks to Dave for getting us away on time (and the photos showing conditions early on), and PaulP for doing the results as shown below.
