11 competitors arrived to a borderline B or C rig breeze blowing straight down the lake and the prospect of a challenging day’s racing ahead. The club’s anemometer showed a steady 15 mph gusting to 20 during the practice and this built all day forcing the lower rigs to be used but more on that later.
The simple windward, leeward course with a spreader mark and a leeward gate made good use of the length of the lake, the shallow edges to this natural banked lake did mean the racing was tight and in these strong conditions the fleet had to keep good boat control.
Philip Udall from Eastleigh club dropped out before the finish of the first race and Rob Vice broke his rudder servo mounting in race 2. Phil Holiday’s Quark2 was making the best progress in the morning and after missing the first 3 races, Alf Reynolds was making some great starts and consistently scoring low. With the breeze building further and rain heavy in the air a lunch break was taken after 8 races. Only 2 boats managed to finish all 8 morning races, the scores without discards were:
Phil Holiday 24
John Shorrock 26
Hugh MacAdoo 38
Peter Popham 43
Gordon Beddall 50
Dick Gobbins 54
John Bennett 55
Alf Reynolds 56
Alan Viney 57
Rob Vice 86
Philip Udall 96
The rain came down harder and the smaller C2 rig was now required forcing Alan and Gordon to retire for the day as the wind surpassed their C rigs.
Alf survived one more race before retiring and the rest changed into their C3 rigs, Dick got as far as race 13 and John Bennett retired after race 14.
John Shorrock and his Quark really took a strangle hold on the first places winning 7 of the afternoon’s 8 races with Peter Popham taking 6 second places and a win with his Cream Cracker, leaving the rest to survive the conditions and fight out the minor places. By the last two races there only 4 battle hardened skippers racing and each enjoyed the strongest of the breezes including at least one gust of 43mph and sustained periods of 30mph.
Some fantastic sailing from John, who was the only skipper to finish every race today, secured the district championship with a commanding victory but everyone who sailed at all, got to enjoy these fabulous yachts in some wonderfully testing conditions.
The scores at the end of the day and after 3 discards were:
John Shorrock 20
Peter Popham 32
Hugh MacAdoo 36
Phil Holiday 42
John Bennett 74
Dick Gobbins 92
Gordon Beddall 104
Alf Reynolds 109
Alan Viney 117
Rob Vice 146
Philip Udall 156
Report and Photos with thanks to Rob Vice
