We had a great day’s racing with a ‘record’ entry of 8 for these series events and 16 races were sailed in sunny blustery conditions, which gave some exciting racing on the off wind legs.

Roger welcomed David Cole, who was taking part in the series for the first time and he was presented with a ROF to help him see and react to the inevitable variable winds.

Before the briefing competitors were shown David Coode’s marvellous 19 page 1992 MYA League Results booklet, which was promised at the AGM; a marvellous piece of work David carried out over many years. 

A simple windward leeward course set with the start line becoming the leeward gate and a windward mark with a spreader. The rising ‘tide’ a metre above recent levels caused a problem because of the length of the mooring lines that needed adjusting. Despite this delay in the start of racing 10 races were sailed by lunchtime when the leaderboard was topped by Barrie Martin counting 5 first places. 

Keeping track of the wind variations on the beat was really difficult because sometimes a gust coming down from above made your on port tack instantly become starboard tack, without you doing anything with the rudder!  This variation often made stalling a problem if you weren’t quick enough to react to the change, because the strong gusts were briefly overpowering the A rigs. Approaching the finishing line was both exciting and frustrating; exciting if you were at speed chasing the boat in front and frustrating for that boat not getting a small puff just to get you over the line.

Also downwind the strongest gusts briefly caused broaching or going out of control, but the speed was exciting and the boats and spray always looked very impressive highlighted against the black gusts!

Martin was very unlucky at the start because in a collision his switch turned the radio off and gave him a big score. The switch problem was repeated in race 13 and he then acted as the race officer for the remaining races. To challenge Barrie there were 4 other race winners, but in the 4 final races he was in a class of his own, as you can see from the results.

Look forward to even more enthusiasm for the next event, WWS 6 on 29^th of November.

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!

We enjoyed some fantastic racing in a strong and gusty south easterly breeze gradually veering to the southerly forecast.  The sailing was exciting, as off wind the DF 95s in A rig were often overpowered in the gusts, nosediving & broaching, but going really fast with the bluff shape of the BOTTLE boat throwing loads of spray everywhere.

We decided to use the west bank control area and set a small course in an area that was away from the visible patches of weed on the other side of the lake.  The start marks also acted as the leeward gate and the windward mark defined a small triangle to minimise the weed problem.  Initially there was a problem until the fleet had sailed up and down the course a few times where everyone had picked up weed and had to be rescued.  Slieve who managed to collect some weed on every launching gave up after a couple of races.

This left 5 competitors who really enjoyed the closeness of the racing the 16 races, which gave us 3 discards, which basically covered these early weed problems. Everyone was pleased to have a win and the final scores show how close the racing was, with just 2 points separating the first 4 places!

The closest finish was in Race 8 between Alan and Martin fighting to avoid last place (5th).  There was a bumper difference at the line with Alan taking the 4th place.  Had the result of been different this would have affected the overall result giving Martin 3rd place overall by just one point instead of Alan.  It was a really good day’s racing!

The photographs do not show all of us racing as Martin and I could not sail the last race, but my camera got some idea of the event, particularly the incredibly variable wind as can be seen in wind indicator angles of boats close together.

Two races were scheduled this year during August.

Both events were sailed in very light winds ,the first from the south bank avoiding the patches of slime that have been hanging around for some weeks.There were five competitor for this day which produced some very close racing,and each of the five skippers won at least one race.

For the next event on the 23rd we had expected to sail off the south bank again but the forecast westerly breeze turnd into a northerly,so we moved to the west bank which turned out to be the right decision.

The racing was again very close this time with six skippers sailing.Slieve seemed to have got his boat well tuned and produced some good results including winning the last race by some hundered yards.

Simon had some winch problems and had to leave early which hampered his results.There was plenty of good humoured banter on both days and Slieve was presented whith a bottle of wine for his ever improving performance.Most of us seemed to pick up small bits of weed at some stage but fortunately it has not been a major problem this year.

We stopped sailing at 1.30 this day as the wind faded to a complete calm.

Click here for the full results produced by Alan: 2023-08-23 Holiday Series 2 DF95

The final event of the series was a great success with 12 races sailed in really weird variable winds, basically from the SW and sometimes from the SE and anything in between.  

The best bit was the interruption at lunchtime for Martin’s hotdog barbecue and sharing a bottle of wine, which became the focus of lunchtime chat.  

You can see from Alan’s scoresheet that themost successful skipper was once again Barrie Martin, with his multiple wins.  The scoring was very close indeed for the runners-up with only a few points separating 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th and whilst we all suffered from falling into holes in the breeze we did enjoy the excitement of the racing and the close finishes.  These scores also affected the overall results for the Summer Series, which are also published.

Although initially catching the stringy weed which was attached to the blue marks upset Martin’s usual performance, he did win the Series and was presented with the lovely French copper trophy and was thanked for providing the barbecue.

Report by Roger Stoller

The GMYC Arcadia – GAMES 6 & BBQ this Saturday 22nd July, has unfortunately had to be cancelled due to lack of entries.

https://www.mya-uk.org.uk/report-and-results-mya-marblehead-ranking-3-4-datchet-water-saturday-15th-sunday-16th-july/

This was a record turnout of 9 competitors, even without Martin able to be at Abbey Meads.  Thanks go to Mike for bringing along his son and helping to set up for the day and recording scores.  With the latest lane restrictions at the A3/M25 junction and road closure between Addlestone & St Peter’s Hospital extended my normal 25 minute journey by over an hour, despite following the non-motorway route via Woking.

Fortunately, the wind was more south-westerly than the westerly forecast and allowed a reasonable course to be set from the west control area.  Photos do not reveal the excitement of the racing, which was very close at times and gave great flat out speed on some of the offering legs in the gusts.  Congratulations to Barrie who won 8 out of the 15 races and only counted second places in his total score!

The plastic boat suffered what might have been a disaster when one of the plastic rowlock fixings broke, but fortunately there was a rowlock hole at the stern to allow me to skull to finish the buoy laying.

This report will be attached along with Alan’s score sheet, the pic page & the overall Series Scores with event 6 included.

Roger Stollery 2023-07-13 

2023-07-12 WSS Summer Series 6 DF95

2023-07-12 WSS 6 pic page

2023-07-12 Overall Summer Series scores