To the delight of the competitors who had travelled from the Midland and Southwest districts, the midweek forecast of doom, gloom, rain and gales was replaced by warm sunshine, a moderate SSW wind not far off straight down the lake.

PRO, Martin Crysell set a simple windward leeward one lap course that was great fun and much enjoyed by 9 competitors who sailed 16 races, at which point 3 race scores could be discarded. Discards were appreciated because during the day the wind started to blow more from behind the control area leaving big holes in the wind between the very strong gusts where poor results were easy to achieve!

First on the podium was Peter Shepherd with his FAT BOY, chased over the line by Mike Ewart sailing one of the 6 ICE designs in the fleet. After a really bad race, as a result of poor preparation, Rob Vice improved his trim and concentration to win Race 2 from John Burgoine. Peter Shepherd came back to win Race 3 from Roger Stollery sailing his SUPABUG design. Mike Ewart came good in Race 4, beating Rob into 2nd place who then went on to win Race 5 easily from Peter Shepherd, who scored his 3rd win in Race 6.

The wind was beginning to get stronger and some boats changed down to a lower rig to cope with the strong gusts when going downwind. The battle of the ICE’s in Race 7 was won by Mike Ewart from Rob, who went on to win the next race. David Wilkinson who was sailing his new ICE for the first time got the best out of it to win Race 9 and a 2nd in Race 10 to Peter, who got a great start and pulled right away from the fleet.

At the lunchtime break with a couple of discards, Peter was at the top of the leaderboard with 15, closely followed by Rob with 16 and Mike with 22 points.

For the afternoon racing, Martin Crysell extended the course by adding another half lap to finish on the run. The gusts were coming more from behind the control area and swirling eddies required lots of concentration to keep these superlight boats sailing in a straight line. Rob resolved to tack less often in the afternoon and this paid off with 3 wins and a 2nd, each time beating Peter to the finishing line. John Burgoine was having a problem with his radio gear and Rob kindly lent him his and some of Rob’s magic rubbed off, as John went on to win the last race in fine style from Mike Ewart. He was delighted!

The prizewinners thanked Martin and assistant race officer John Townsend for running another good Footy event. The Footy class give a special NovICE trophy to the best competitor who has not achieved a podium place in the Footy open meeting series. Relatively new Footy enthusiast, John Burgoine was delighted to get his engraved stainless steel NovICE trophy.

The next event in the Open Footy series will be the ‘MAD MARCH HARE’ at Woodspring on 13th March, with other events shown on the Footy website www.sailfootyuk.com .

Results:
1st Rob Vice Clapham ICE 23, 2nd Peter Shepherd Abington Park FAT BOY 28, 3rd Mike Ewart Two Islands ICE 35, 4th Roger Stollery Guildford SUPABUG 49, 5th Peter Jackson Abington Park F PLAN 58.7, 6th John Burgoine Birmingham ICE 59, 7th David Wilkinson Cotswold ICE 62, 8th Keith Parrott Frensham Pond ICE 86, 9th Peter Dunne Guildford ICE 105.