Dear All,
Martin, Alan, Peter and myself welcomed our Canadian visitor, John Ball to Abbey Meads on Sunday on an incredibly hot day, with a light and variable northerly wind. It was almost too hot in the full sun, but Alan brought his umbrella which gave a
little shade in the morning shared by as many of us who could cram underneath it, when we were not racing. John is used to sailing IOMs and so it made a change to sail my UP.
The last time he sailed a Marblehead in the UK was at the first Marblehead International in 1975 at Gosport. Then he sailed a Chris Dicks design PTERODACTYL into second place and beat all the UK skippers, just as he did on Sunday!
Attached are some photo’s recording the events of the day, but not the presentation of the Arcadia Trophy, which was not available to present. At least a photograph of the trophy is shown below. This is a trophy competed for on merit and John showed his skill in sailing on Abbey Meads with the very variable wind to win the event.
Apart from the disappointing wind, there were loose strands of weed picked up by every boat in every race and this problem, presumably accelerated by the hot weather has arrived a lot earlier than its normal appearance in the early autumn and casts doubt on the running of our ALE series from now on.
The committee will make a decision on this just prior to the next ALE event on Wednesday, 19 July.
Cheers, Roger