With the northerly wind forecast we were initially committed to using the west bank control area. After rowing the proposed course, I set a simple triangle with the furthest blue mark and a start and gate.
However it was clear after a couple of races that the weed was causing a problem, so Martin reset the course from the southern bank, which caused less problem. There were 7 competitors initially, which included Mike Barnes’ friend, Lanre who was on holiday from Nigeria and which added an international flavour to the event. As you can see from the pic page he enjoyed himself when he sailed my BOTTLE boat after lunch and allowing me to take photographs.
At home he sails a LIGHTNING dinghy and so was able to sail well, once he had got the hang of controls, which he found difficult to start with. His comment was that “It isn’t as easy as it looks!“
Anyway, he made good starts, as shown in photo 1. On this occasion photo 2, Mike Barnes 585 got the very best start and led the fleet to the windward mark C, photos 3 & 4. There were some very close finishes as shown in photo 5, with Slieve 11 showing his increasing expertise and leading the chasers to the finishing line.
Martin did well to win the event, but he would also have collected the prize (if we had one) for the biggest haul of weed, as he ran into a big patch right near the finishing line at the very end of the event, as shown filling half the dinghy in photo 6!
