Cobweb Trophy – 7 January 2023

This was not a good start for GMYC club racing in the New Year, as the conditions were horrid not just because of the continuous rain, but it was cold and the track along the west bank had been used many times since we were last there by the fishermen’s vans. It was so muddy that we didn’t dare take our cars along. As even pulling our inflatable boat and emergency boat along this track was difficult/impossible because of the mud, we launched from the south bank steps. There was sufficient depth to allow launching our Marbleheads without the need for a launching platform.

Having set an angled course to suit the variable south easterly breeze (that was forecast southerly), we realised that this was not going to be good course and so we walked round to the west bank where there was really good course down to the 2 blue gate marks.

It was disappointing only to have 3 of the 5 entries, but Martin, Barrie and Roger actually thought initially that we were mad to sail in these conditions. However with a super C rig breeze it was exciting sailing off the wind and even to windward. With no starting buoys set, we lined up evenly along the line of the steps going to windward to get a fair start and this worked well.

Martin won the first race and Barrie the 2nd, but later had a problem with water in his electrics. The remaining races were shared between Martin and Roger and according to the MYA SSI scoring rule 9.3 the result was down to who won the last race, which Roger managed to take.

After that we decided that enough was enough and went home for lunch in the warm. We rang Alan who was quite happy with that as he wasn’t really looking forward to sailing in the afternoon in the rain and Slieve called in just as Roger was leaving to check whether there was going to be any further racing.

Fortunately, the forecast for Wednesdays’ WSS 1 is for westerly winds, so car parking & launching from the southern steps should not be a problem.