It was great to get back on the water again and despite the small numbers there was some very good racing, wherever you were in the fleet. We were operating from the southern control area, but the wind was not cooperative and persisted in being north-westerly until lunchtime when it backed to the forecast WNW. Then there were much stronger vicious gusts, which gave some exciting downwind legs. Everyone was happy to have won at least one race of the 13 races sailed.
Approaching the windward mark was a problem because the wind there, towards the western steps, was almost non-existent and you had to be lucky to take the wind with you to the buoy to round it. Once round the leading boat often came to establish a big lead and consolidate it on the run and beat back the finish line.
In the very last race we were all bunched together and approaching this windward mark on port and expecting to tack around it, but as we turned through120°, we left the mark still sailing on port! Had there been a collision the rulebook would not have contained any relevant rules to be able to sort this one out!
Initially Martin was dominant, but didn’t win all the races as Peter Dunne having come out to play for the first time won Race 2 by a big margin and in Race 5 it was Les Thorn’s turn win and fill in the scoresheet. After lunch Roger changed boats, but used the same rig to test new technology on board 23 year old BOTTLE boat 2. Actually this was not just to check the range of the new 2.4 GHz, although this worked well, but to keep his hands warm as the muff didn’t have any holes for the old-fashioned long aerial used in the morning.
Strangely the BOTTLE boat started to do well in the stronger gusts despite being shorter on waterline and it was good to be competitive against the DF 95s and actually win a race. Or was it just that the fingers and thumbs were warmer?
Report by Roger Stollery 2021-05-07
DF95 Sailing Wednesday 5th May 21
