The entry from M&S district clubs was very disappointing, as there were only 6 from just 4 clubs, supplemented by 2 entries from the eastern and and one from the midland district.
There was plenty of wind at times, but it varied so that you could use every rig, initially A rig and in the final stages C3. Huge waves build up as soon as the wind strength increases and the sailing was like sailing on the sea and great fun so long as you were in the right rig and were on the downhill side of the waves! Colin Goodman demonstrated how good a skipper he is, with 8 wins from the 17 races sailed.
Despite having learnt from the recent Sunday ranking event at Datchet also in strong winds and made good the technical defects aboard UP, Roger was disappointed that his ambition for this event, which was to finish every race, was not achieved. The worst failures were of the bottom bearings of his B and C rigs, which prevented UP being in the right rig for the wind conditions and having to sail the event in too small a rig. In terms of results, which are attached, Roger spent two of the races fishing for his sheet inside a wet hull as a result of the 5 mm plastic ball, which joins the sheet to the loop on the BOOT line, breaking in half!
This was as a result of planing into the buoy adjacent to the launching platform at high speed when not under control just after launching, The foreyard took the impact and broke the ball, but Roger was delighted that the impact was not sufficient to damage the plastic gears of the £11 King Max two turn winch, which has been so reliable in all the strong winds since September.”
