After the disappointment of having to cancel the event on 4 January for several reasons including the flood warning, even this event might not have been possible because of the very localised flood warning with the centre marked close to our lake. We agreed to hold this meeting because there were the minimum 5 entries by midday Tuesday.
There was both concern and excitement driving to the lake about what we might find at the lakeside. Martin and I had plenty of time to imagine various scenarios because we were both taking well over an hour sitting in queues which doubled our normal journey time. Mike Barnes was first to arrive promptly at 9 o’clock and then had to wait until we got there. We arrived at the same time as an Affinity Water agent, who stated that 2024 levels were not quite as high as the last flood in 2014.
What we saw was amazing because the water level had risen to over-top the grass at the top of the southern steps! You could just see the top step through the slightly murky water and Mike stood on it for the photo to record this special occasion. The north-easterly wind forecast for 12 – 22 miles an hour was bitingly and numbingly cold and the simplest of courses with just 2 marks was set in line with the wind and using the club flag post to create the start and finish line, in line with the leeward mark.
With no leaves on the trees and the sun shining it looked ideal, but the wind variation made it really difficult to sail to windward, particularly at the windward mark where you could see your boat tacking without you touching the helm! This caused lots of incidents including stalling, with the sun shining on the bright yellow mark making it incredibly difficult to judge where the mark was. Part of the problem with a bright mark is that the reflection caused by the sun confuses you into thinking that the reflection was the mark and so it was missed on so many attempts to round it. The best mark colour is dark blue like our permanent marks further up the lake. The two off-wind legs were of course great fun with plenty of fast planing in the gusts so long as you were on the right gybe.
The morning belonged to Mike as you can see from the scoresheet starting with 3 straight wins only interrupted by 2 wins by Barrie before the break. As we all complained about the difficulties at the windward mark, I then reset it much closer to the downwind mark and whilst this helped, rounding that mark was still difficult.
With such a good start Mike wanted to finish the event at the break, but we continued up to 1 o’clock and sailed a total of 12 races after which we decided that enough was enough and we just wanted to get warm. After the break the racing belonged to Simon Johnson with 4 straight wins and after his run of seconds early on, this consistency won him the event with 18 points. There was a tie for 2nd place with both Mike and Barrie scoring 21 points, which was broken in favour of Mike with more 2nd places.
After the last race I handed my transmitter to Martin and picked up my camera to record some whizzy pictures in the strongest gusts. Of course, if one points the camera at the boats immediately the wind doesn’t cooperate, but the photos do record some of the speed achieved.
Probably we shall never see this amazing ‘stage’ again, as it was 10 years ago that John Townsend, who lived by the river bank and had his garage flooded and took pictures showing the western bank top step being over-topped by the flood water.
Finally a notice about the next Spring Series event 2 on 24th January. It has had to be cancelled, because the majority of our normal entrants are Hampton Court members and they will be at their club work party cutting the reeds at the edge of their Rick Pond.
