We were blessed with another lovely sunny day at Gorleston for Act 5 of the Autumn series. With a warm F2-3 SSE breeze and the tide just starting to flood it was going to be a tide assisted beat and long runs over the waves. Eight boats launched into a rather lively sea with the RS400’s making up half the fleet.
After the start of race one everyone headed offshore to pick up the tide. Richard & Carol were quickest upwind and headed the pack at a busy windward mark with the 400’s and D-One Steve rounding in quick succession. At the leeward gate Richard & Carol had a 30 second lead over the closely packed fleet. Over the course of the race Steve, showing great downwind speed slowly closed the gap to finish just one second behind at the finish and winning on corrected time. Dave & John, who had caught up on lap two managed to tie a knot in their spinny halyard resulting in a rather slow spinny drop finished third. Just behind were Simon and Bruce and Richard & Robyn who had enjoyed the first of three race long tussles.
Steve continued his good form in race two to lead after lap one followed by the 400’s led by Dave & John. However this all changed on lap two after Richard & Carol picked their way up the beat to lead after the second lap with Dave & John six seconds behind. After a further two laps of close racing it could have gone either way at the finish line with Dave & John crossing less than a boat length ahead of Richard & Carol with Richard & Robyn slipping past Simon & Bruce in the final stages of the race.
The wind had picked up a tad by the time the final race started. Richard & Carol continued their upwind prowess to lead after lap one, two seconds ahead of Dave & John with Richard & Robyn just ahead of Simon & Bruce. On the second downwind leg Dave & John managed to slip ahead and held onto a narrow lead to the finish. Simon & Bruce managed to slip past Richard & Robyn on the final lap. Just behind the 400’s David Brief, making the rather big transition from Shadow X to Laser was now getting to grips with the Laser and improving every race and preventing a 400 1,2,3 to take third on corrected time.
On returning to shore there was a rather frisky surf to contend with but following some great team work every got ashore safely although most were thoroughly soaked wading into help others.
Many thanks to the race team for a great day of extremely close racing with some enjoyable downwind legs riding the waves. And a special thanks to Robyn for the wonderful chocolate cake which everyone appreciated.