What a difference a week makes! Thank you to everyone for doing your wind dances during this week in preparation for this week’s race. Although a little gusty at times, conditions were pretty close to perfect with a good breeze and sun. This resulted in a much better prestart lead up with lots of jossling for position. Don’t be afraid to push closer to the line though. Whilst it was great that we had no-one over the line, the start is where you can really gain an advantage getting as close to it as possible. Sometimes that will mean you over cook it and are over but it will pay off for all the times that you get it just right. There were some real gains to be had today. Of particular note, Mike Blatchford and Fay Watson set themselves up with clear air and a good first beat with the flying starts that they pushed for.
The first leg saw some great racing. David Mason gave Peter Gregory a real race up the first beat and then round the rest of the lap trailing him by just 14 seconds at the gate. Kim also had a flyer of a first beat reaching the windward mark first of the 303s and also keeping up with the bigger boats. On the second lap, Peter Gregory started to stretch his lead but by no means had it his own way with David and Mike following behind. David and Mike really did fight it out on the second lap with 4 seconds separating them when they sailed through the gate. Fay Watson also had a flyer of a lap, overtaking 2 boats during the lap.
The third lap saw Mike Blatchford win his dual with David Mason overtaking him and maintaining this advantage until the end of the race although David was catching on the final lap. Kim increased her time advantage over the other 303s whilst also catching the bigger boats. Only the bigger boats completed a fourth lap with places remaining consistent from lap 3.
Here are some pictures from the day…..
Summing up, a big well done to everyone for getting the course right. It is much more complicated that we completed last year, I didn’t see any boats missing a mark. I was also impressed by collision avoidance, there were a couple of moments that could have been quite near misses but you skillfully avoided these. Again, where there was bunching at marks, plenty of space seemed to be given for boats to get round the mark. There were only a few misses of the gate today and everyone who was reminded did go back. We won’t keep doing this once all the cobwebs have been brushed off so please try and remember as missing the gate is a disqualification as we won’t have a lap time for you.
Hope you all enjoyed this weeks installment of the race. We look forward to seeing you on the water next week.
The results for this race are:-
- Kim Sparkes
- David Mason
- Mike Blatchford
- Peter Wagner
- Steve Farmer
- Kelly Tripp
- Fay Watson
- Peter Gregory
- Rachel Ibbottson
- Paul Hagan
- Derek Green
Martin Newman & Louise McSweeney Retired (RTD).