GMYC were racing on a Saturday for the first time and this was both strange and exciting. Strange because it seemed to come too close to the end of the week.
Exciting because there were unknowns like the traffic before 9 o’clock, which thankfully was similar to normal Sunday’s traffic. Exciting because Peter Dunne had made a trolley for the dinghy and when I arrived trolley and boat were already in place on the south bank. Exciting because we had a ‘new’ gazebo to test in gusty top end of rig A or B winds, which was fine so long as it was tied down to the rails on my Focus! Exciting because of the windy forecast 12 to 30 mph in which we didn’t race last year. Exciting because Mark Mortimore had joined our small band of enthusiasts to sail his new UPROAR, SISTER SLEDGE.
This increased the entry to 6, which could have been 7, if Alan hadn’t been struggling with a cold. Peter was disappointed that his rudder servo failed, but stayed on to score the first few races. Mark was absolutely delighted by his new boat’s performance and won Race 3 and counted podium places except for the first and last race!
On the basis of the forecast strong wind, Peter Stollery came down with his UPFRONT to test his B rig and was delighted that it handled OK after problems with a bigger main to jib proportion used previously. His winning of 3 of the first 4 races was very impressive against the other A rigged boats that were chasing him hard.
8 races were sailed before lunch, at which point Peter had to go home and Mark put his boat away, didn’t do any more racing and took down the scores for the next 3 races, which are now attached.
This was a handicap event and it was quite clear at the lake that Mark’s performance was way above his 25% handicap and so he was presented with the COBWEB trophy as the winner, which was confirmed by the attached results, which Alan has worked out.
Martin Crysell presenting Mark Mortimore with the 2019 Cobweb Trophy.
