Fortunately it was dry, but there was a cold north-easterly wind that really did require proper gloves and not just the fingerless ones. We set a course with two windward marks in an attempt to get a windward beat out of at least one of the two courses, as the wind was flicking around the trees to windward.
Peter Dunne was on the water first trying his new STARKERS without a problem and this helped set the course. However at the start of racing his mainsheet came off the winch and so our first race was a practice race won by Martin. The racing was very close at times with lots of slowing down in the holes and steaming along in the gusts with lots of place changing on the last run to the line.
Soon after the start Alan Viney’s son, Graham and grandson Matthew arrived and so Alan let Graham sail a couple of races with four-year-old Matthew being the official starter! As you can see from the attached results there was a different winner in every race and so the results are very close, with my two victories taking the trophy on merit.
Peter Dunne was absolutely delighted to win the very last race in view of his dodgy start and Alan was delighted to tie with Martin. Martin had to go at lunchtime and so we stopped the trophy race, but continued to race without keeping a record. Again the racing was very close. It was great to see young Matthew having a go at sailing and he obviously enjoyed it and did well, although he did suffer from being cold at the end of the day. The attached photo records the three generations of Viney present.
