13th October 2018 - Report by Alan Smedley

In gusty conditions blustering in from the South, 12 skippers made it to the last race in the 2018 medal series. The conditions were as much a test of the wee boats construction and maintenance, as the skipper’s ability to cope with the warm but breezy flurries. Derek Lane was the first to withdraw from the practice race followed shortly after by Alan Smedley in the first of 16 heats. Competition was cut throat but in most cases fair, considering the conditions. With the wind at the competitor’s backs it had been necessary to place the windward mark close to the club staging, and with a dry summer having depleted the water level, there was very little consistency in the wind strength or direction, as it meandered off the shore. It was never that much of a surprise to find a model’s starboard tack, rapidly turn to a port give way boat, sensibly treated in the majority of cases, as unavoidable. Broad reaches were a hoot with Nips regularly revealing their bottoms. Frustrated skippers found that no amount of stick twiddling corrected the situation; you just had to wait 10 seconds for the gust to blow through. Dave Pace made a valiant effort, but his model found the worsening wind strength too much and he too retired before lunch. The most spectacular of failures must have been when Keith Bell’s number 21 failed to respond to its handlers commands. Once shepherded back by EPSC’s r/c buoy boat a surprised Keith found on inspection that the clunking noise within was caused by detached servo mounting bearers. As the day progressed the wind strengthened but the somewhat grey start transformed into a sunny afternoon. There had been a 25% attrition rate and it is a credit to the design, that eight of these little yachts survived the autumn onslaught.

The prizes were presented by EPSC’s commodore Rob Bell for 1st 2nd and 3rd places in the days event, with Peter Shepherd awarding the trophy for the overall winner of the series to a delighted John Burgoine.
Many thanks to Tim Leese, for ably acting as scorer for the day and to Colin’s wife for baking a most delicious fruit cake; quickly devoured by hungry helmsmen during our clubhouse breaks. Every spreadsheet tells a story and as can be seen from the results sheet, the smart sailors buoyed themselves to the top of the columns. An exciting ending indeed, to an enjoyable seasons sailing.

Here is a video that John Morse took at the event. Also above pictures were taken by John Morse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YMCF12HxEg&t=78s

Here is a a link to a video John Morse made on the day.

http://www.morse.uk.com/WeeNip29Sep18_vid.mp4

Eleven skippers arrived to do battle on a rather autumnal morning, so on went the wet weather gear, which actually wasn’t needed after the first few minutes of light drizzle. The wind was a bit of a mixed blessing, whilst there was plenty of it,, the direction was one of our least favourites , blowing from a south westerly direction, straight over the houses and trees, with the western island casting a shadow right down the middle of the lake, so course planning to avoid the worst of the bad air was a bit of a nightmare.
 As is usual under these conditions We raced off the spit, starting between white 5 and a pole on the bank, beating to a small buoy, which we dropped in to replace the one that drifted off as the water rose after the drought. It was placed just off our normal sailing platform , not too far to sail but being a smallish buoy and being directly away from the control area, combined with the shifting wind caused more than one competitor problems , either over standing or rounding short.
There were two ways to attack the weather mark, either hugging the shore , rounding from port tack, which was fine as long as you were far enough in front or alternatively, tacking out into the clearer air beyond the islands, then tacking across , rounding on starboard tack, all easier said than done as you had to cross a calm patch which was never the same on consecutive legs.
After successfully rounding the weather mark, there was a nice run back to the buoy off the spit, reaching out into the pond before another challenging beat back to the windward buoy. The second lap brought us straight into the eastern channel , through the gate and back upwind to the finish line on a short beat, which  some managed better than others, with positions changing right up to the line.
After the first few races, it became apparent that there was a heavy port bias to the line, so the pole was moved to even things up a little.
The wind remained brisk throughout the day, but the Nips took it in their stride and despite it being the same for everyone, again, clearly some skippers managed the shifts and gusts better than others.
By lunchtime, with nine races under our belt, it was becoming clear that it was turning out to be a two way battle between John Burgoine and John Simmons, who was some way behind.  John B didn’t have it all his own way, he was generous enough to let John S win five of the sixteen races, with the only other wins going to Keith Coxon and a nice win for Stephen wheeler, which was hard to miss in his Dayglo pink boat.
There was a huge gap between the top three and the rest of the fleet, with some of the skippers who are usually the mix, finding themselves at the wrong end of the fleet, far too often.
Peter Shepherd, struggled at first, finding himself trailing the fleet, until he regained his composure, managing to sail well enough to climb up to fourth place, others just fought it out to stay away from the tail end.
Tim Leese kindly did the scoring, which made life much easier allowing us to concentrate on racing.
The breezy conditions and sixteen races took their toll on batteries meaning that the electric rescue boat earned it's keep, fortunately Geoff’s battery died just before the last race, with him close enough to shore to not need rescuing.
 

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..