Sadly, due to holidays, unserviceable boats and a variety of other reasons, today's fleet was somewhat depleted but those stalwarts who did attend were treated to a super day's sailing these great little boats, in almost perfect conditions.
The sky was blue, with a few fluffy clouds here and there, the sun shone and there was even a decent breeze, albeit slightly variable in direction and strength.
Initial pitch inspection dictated that the only sensible sailing area was off the spit, which gave us the added bonus of a little bit of very welcome shade from the trees as well as the choice of a reasonable course, avoiding most of the wind shadows.
Nominally the wind was blowing from West,  occasionally swinging to a North westerly, which dictated a triangle course using red buoys 4, 5 and 6, which firstly took us out into the lake, rounding to port to red 5, in the eastern bay followed by a long run into red 6, in the channel, which we repeated twice, with a short upwind finish. Occasionally we swung the whole course to make a better start but eventually settled on the first course and ignored the slight shifts, sometimes the beats were good, other times, less so.
The racing was very close, with any silly mistake costing dearly but there was an element of luck, as usual, by being in the right place at the right time to either take advantage of any shifts and of course missing the shiny patches.
We welcomed a prospective new member, an experienced helicopter and aeroplane pilot , who is in the process of building a Nip. Although I have taken his results out of the scores, he didn't disgrace himself, scoring a 3rd place in his second race as well as a couple of 5th places, sailing a borrowed boat for the first four races.
From the start a close battle developed between Geoff Raygada and John Simmons and indeed eight  out of the twelve first places were shared between Geoff and John, with the others being shared equally between Alan Smedley and Keith Bell.
Keith took a little time to find the sweet spot of Paul Risdale's spare boat, due to his own boat undergoing repairs, but when he got to grips with it, he sailed with his usual skill to collect third prize.
Alan had his moments, especially towards the end but sadly a slow start, saw him just slip behind Paul Risdale, which leaves Colin Davies who simply could not find the correct settings, despite copious fiddling... err, tuning and was even tempted by the loan of a 11/2lb tuning aid !

Round four of the Medal Challenge took place in Abington Park on Saturday 17th June 2018. The winds were mostly light with some gusts to catch the unwary out. The results were close at the top, with Paul Risdale coming out on top by one point from Peter Shepherd. There were a couple of course changes during the day to accommodate the ever changing winds in the park. The next round is at Two Islands on the 7th July.

The third round of the Wee Nip Challenge took place in Abington Park on Saturday 19th May. The weather was hot and there was little wind as we were sitting in a high pressure zone. Peter S set a course which was sat towards the Wellingborough  Road end, but after lunch the course was changed round completely. But retained the same course roundings. The results were somewhat varied, but special mention to Norman H who won race four, and Derek L won race thirteen.
Race four will be at Abington Park on June 16th.

Reported by Peter Jackson

Round 2 of the Challenge took place in Abington Park on 21st April 2018. There were eight entries to the challenge. PJ suffered a terminal failure of the hull after discovering a hole in the hull after race one. Peter Shepherd was also a late entry to the competition after doing race officer duties initially. The weather was very pleasant for a change and the wind was reasonable if a little light. John Burgoine was the outstanding winner of the event with Alan Smedley from Emberton Park second and Paul Mallard, a recent convert from full size sailing coming in a very creditable third..