When we arrived, the lake was like a mirror reflecting the clouds and trees in the background looking absolutely beautiful. Despite the apparent lack of wind the first boat launched sailed away OK, but there were big holes where making progress required the utmost concentration and a lot of patience. Mid-morning the forecast southerly wind actually started to come in gently from the south-east and at least created a reasonable windward leeward course. All 5 competitors found the racing frustrating as there was an element of luck needed to grasp that vestige of wind, but nearly all won one of the 8 races.
David Coode, who had travelled 2 1/2 hours from Herefordshire to Abbey Meads was pleased that his patience paid off allowing him to win the event with 4 wins. He said, “I released all the tension on the forestay and allowed the sail to respond to what little wind there was”.
The lake was quite sailable apart from two clumps of weed, which required the rescue boat to retrieve the DF and like fishing, bring aboard the ‘trawl’ of all of that isolated clump.
