The enthusiasm for one more Thursday started early with several suggesting they would be up for one more sail on the ‘GYGSC Thursdays’ WhatsApp group. And with the weather forecasting provided by Phil we were sure to have great sailing conditions!
As it happened Phil’s forecast turned out to be bang on with a warm F3 WSW breeze. Eleven boats took to the water for two races with the Lasers out in force with 5 boats. Although not sailing Chris kindly stayed and helped most of the boats launch as the sea was a bit ‘lumpy’. With a flooding tide throughout the evenings racing the race team set a starboard windward-leeward course with a spacer 100 metres up tide of the windward mark.
In race one the Lasers of Tamsin and Keith and the RS400 of Phil & Lorna opened up a good lead on the rest of the fleet, with Tasmin taking line honours and the race win by 6 seconds over Keith. During the race the wind proved quite shifty and although predominantly WSW was moving between W and SW, so lots of opportunities to make or lose position. Despite this the rest of the fleet remained closely bunched finishing within a minute of each other with Steve, sailing his Europe taking third, just ahead of Richard F in his Laser
Race two saw Richard B, sailing his Solution getting caught out by the tide and over at the start. Tamsin and Keith continued their battle with the lead swapping a number of times during the race. As the leading boats approached the spacer mark on the final lap the wind shifted to the SW and increased to a F3-4 providing a great reach to the line with most of the boats planning through the waves. Richard B, benefitting from the extra wind pulled ahead of the main fleet and almost caught the two leading Lasers at the line. In the main pack the racing had been close all race and the next five boats crossed the line within 50 seconds of each other. On corrected time Tamsin made it two wins out of two, beating Keith by six seconds again, with Richard B, recovering well and putting in the best lap time of the race on the last lap to take third.
Landing back ashore proved interesting with a very confused sea and despite the flood tide still running the water near the beach was clearly flowing north, the best evidence I’ve seen of the eddy formed by the outer harbour. Back on shore we all finishing packing up the boats in semi darkness but all agreed it had been a lovely evening sailing. Thanks to Phil and Lorna for organising supper once again. Roll on Thursday’s 2020.