5 competitors turned out to have some fantastic racing in very strong wind conditions from the North West. We had to ask ourselves were we mad to stand out for hours in the freezing cold wind and drizzle? Probably the answer is yes, but we thoroughly enjoyed the racing because we didn’t have to complain about light winds and this was a good way to finish both the series and the season for the DF 95s with some spectacular off wind performances in A rig. At times the strongest gusts were just too strong to avoid the dramatic broach, as the goose winged jib hit the water. The slick shape of the DF 95s slices so cleanly through the water that you hardly notice the amazing speed. On the other hand my BOTTLE boat makes a lot of fuss and looks fast, but goes the same speed until the really strong gust arrives when the speed is really spectacular with spray everywhere.
The simple windward leeward course had the windward mark laid in the area of ripples, but the wind was very confused and you could be sailing along on port to find all of a sudden you were on starboard and you hadn’t even touched the helm! There were several pileups as a result of this lack of control and the distant of the mark from the control area.
There were several mishaps and I spent a lot of time rowing to fish out boats that had either driven into the reeds or had some winch unwinding problem or tried to sail over the back of another boat and hook the rudder over it or just switch it off.
I was pleased to do the rescues as the rowing kept me warm. We were pleased to stop at the due time of 2 PM having sailed 13 races and shared some food.
Martin worked out the scores to find that he and I had tied with 4 firsts each and the count back was decided on the number of seconds. For me it was very pleasing, that despite being made of a rubbish a BOTTLE boat can compete on equal terms with the more sophisticated DF 95s.
Whilst racing I tried to take some of the spectacular performances off wind but as you can see from the photograph was not very successful as it is difficult to handle both the camera and the transmitter at the same time. The photograph shows all of us clearly pleased with our days sailing when presenting the beautiful copper boat back to Martin. Mike also wanted to thank Martin for his efforts and presented him with a box of biscuits marking the end of another successful series of DF 95s events. We hope to build on this in 2024.
GMYC DF95 Scoresheet
