Report 2020-02-15 by Roger
There were only 4 of us, but we had an absolutely fabulous days sailing in south south-westerly winds that were forecast from 25 to 48 mph. When winds are so often light you dream about such days! We sailed 12 races and seeing our Marbleheads going so fast was a real delight.
In reality the winds on the water were probably 12 to 24 mph and needed C2 rigs to be comfortable in the gusts. Peter Dunne only had a C1 rig and struggled occasionally and had to be rescued a couple of times and didn’t sail the last 5 races as this might have endangered his rig. Instead, he kindly acted as starter and scorer.
As the severe storm ‘Dennis’ produced these winds it is likely that you don’t need anything smaller than C2 at Abbey Meads, although Martin did try C3 at the end of racing at about 1 o’clock as some of the gusts were getting really strong and heavy rain became uncomfortable.
Roger’s UP dominated the racing by being exceptionally quick to windward, as well as downwind with its offset swing rig, in a similar performance that Peter demonstrated with his UPFRONT in C2 at Fleetwood last year. Roger didn’t have it all his own way as Martin won 3 of the races with his PRIME NUMBER and one of them in his C3 rig. Long distance club traveller, Peter Jackson, improved his UP performance as the day went on and got close to the leaders, after having good races with Peter.
After having many disastrous events in 2019 with C2 rig failing, Roger was delighted that the redesign passed this test without a problem.
