With forecasts of thundery showers it was with some trepidation sailors rigged their boats. In reality it was to be a very warm sunny evening with a F2 SSE breeze. Seven boats launched onto a smooth-ish sea with an ebb tide. The race team managed to fit two races into the evenings programme. With the beat into the tide it favoured the faster boats upwind. The downwind legs evened things out as the tide probably provided as much speed over ground as the wind!
The wind held for race one. Dan and Andy were testing the club 400 which would include their first spinnaker launch!
Steve, now back in his Europe port tacked the fleet and was first to cross the line. Once the others had tacked onto port they followed Steve along the shoreline. Once again the timing of tacking offshore to the windward mark was crucial, too early and you suffered another tack in the tide, most opting to over stand the mark with the leading boats over standing it some what and reaching to the mark on the first lap. First round were the two fastest boats, Dan & Andy (400) and Dave (300) with a small lead on the rest of the fleet which they slowly extended going on to complete an additional lap to the others. Ed, sailing a Topper and the slowest boat by far was finding the upwind legs a challenge but persevered and managed to complete the course.
Dave won on corrected time with Richard Brown (Solution) second and Richard Foster (Laser) third.
Richard F (Laser) and Dave(300) learnt their lesson from race one and port tacked the fleet in race two. After the first lap Dave had opened up a good lead. The wind had started to drop, making the downwind legs rather ‘sloppy’……if that’s a useable sailing term! Dave recorded his second win, Richard B his second second ! with Dan & Andy putting in a good second lap to pip Richard F for third.
Thanks to ‘Team Phil’, aka messrs Harlow and Alison for manning the committee boat and Lorna for ensuring supper was ready when we got back onshore.
