There was a good F3 from the West on arrival at the club, the sun was shining and a gentle sea state, just the ingredients for a pleasant evening sail. With everyone making a effort to rig and launch in a timely manner we actually managed to start racing two minutes early !
Eight boats, a good mixture of classes but all single-handers lined up on the start line.
Adam leads race one – the picture belies the light level.
Race 1 – By the time racing started the wind was F2-3. Michael made an early bid for the lead, unfortunately this included being two boat lengths over the line resulting in a quick U turn. This left Adam and Richard to lead the fleet after lap one although Richard was to become the first casualty of the mysterious attraction of the little orange mark!
Race two gets a clean start
After three laps Adam (Streaker) crossed the line first with Phil (Contender), Harry (Laser Rad) and Phil (Phantom) crossing within a few seconds of each other.
Streaking away!
Race 2 – Adam shot off at the start building up a thirty second lead after two laps. Richard (Vareo) led the chasing pack just ahead of Phantom Phil.
Adam claimed line honours but Richard had closed the gap to just two seconds with Chris (Laser) sneaking in front of the ‘Phil’s on the last lap.
Race 3 and the wind is beginning to ease.
Race 3 – By this time the wind had now eased to F1-2. Adam managed to pull off a port end flyer taking a good lead up the first beat. Darell become the second victim on the little orange mark, managing to first get his centreboard caught on the warp then, having freed this managed to get his rudder caught. Meanwhile, Richard had a good first beat to lead after lap one followed by the ‘Phils’. Unfortunately for Contender Phil, he was about to become the third victim of the little orange mark, although it has to be said, by first capsizing and clearing his centreboard from the anchor warp it proved to be a quick, if not wet method. As the boats sailed the second lap the wind had eased to a F1 so the race team shortened the course. Richard maintained his lead with Phantom Phil second.
Fatal attraction – the mysterious attraction of the ‘little orange mark’
On corrected time there were three different race winners, Harry winning the first, Adam the second and Richard the last race.
In addition to the little orange mark transgressors, there were rumours of a few hitting the big orange mark (windward mark) although this was out of sight of the race team and so unable to verify this.
Full results are on the club web site
http://www.gygsc.org.uk/Results/2024/2024Thursday.htm
Pictures on the club Flickr site
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gygsc/albums/
Heading to shore after a lovely evenings sail