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.
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.
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