What a lucky fleet of sailors you are at WS Racing!! Another superb autumnal day….and the light breeze stayed around just long enough to enable all the entrants to complete the race. Unfortunately the wind, coming from the NE was forecast to be coming from NW, so setting the course was delayed so as to try and avoid leading the Racers into the doldrums (mainly caused when the winds blows from the North by wind shadows created by the belt of tall trees growing along the lake’s northerly bank). (I heard that a long race was especially requested of the right person by the helm of The Red Torpedo – Errmm? Ed) . The course was eventually set as a beat / broad reach from the normal start line to Mark C, then leaving Mark C to Port, a run down breeze to Mark A (A late replacement for Mark B that shook off its shackles to float away at 11.25 – Ed.) to be left to Port, and then a reach/beat over half the length of the lake to Mark E – so far away it could not be seen from the Race Hut – and leaving that Mark to Starboard (Hence creating a figure of eight course! Ed) a run down to Mark J, set just off the southerly bank of the lake at the far end of the boat park. And then a beat/run/broad reach – depending upon the wind direction – back through the Start/Finish Line and up to Mark C again.
Although last week Fleur praised the WS Racing fleet for its vastly improved performance at the Start, that must have gone to your heads because the only boat that hit the line on the Gong and got into its stride from the off was the 2.4m Sail # 148 – aka The Red Torpedo. A few others got across the line soon after the Start Gong sounded (Did Peter Wagner in 2.4m # 108 really think that nobody would notice his eagerness which resulted in being 15 metres over the line? But then he did turn around and restart without being called out by the Race Controller! Ed.) and started sailing away from the first Mark. There is no video evidence of this, but the photos below show the result of how Peter Gregory sailed on a starboard tack pretty much straight to a point just below Mark C and then tacked onto port to be able to round Mark C and head off to Mark A . (As easy as that? Not really since Peter is a brilliant sailor. So, let’s learn from him. Ed) The wind was blowing quite briskly at this time so Peter was about 300 metres clear, close to rounding Mark A, by the time the chasing pack of the two Martins, helmed by Martin Newman and Malcolm Hill, and the two 2.4ms, helmed by Mike Blatchford and Peter Wagner, managed to round Mark C. Although rather long distance, try to see where you are in these photos and perhaps work out what you might have done differently to get from the Start Line to Mark C. E.g. Start from the end of the Start Line closest to the first Mark?
The main struggle in this race, for most helms, was making that first Mark and once they had achieved that they could get on with the rest of the race with better positioning of their boats to make most use of the amount and direction of the available wind. Being only one lap long for everybody other than Peter Gregory who completed two laps (There is always one who has to be different! Ed) and because from the Race Hut we couldn’t see what was happening after the boats passed the start of the narrows, there isn’t much to report about who was doing what to whom….so here are some more photos and a list of the how the Helms finished:
Result of Summer Series Race 13
- Malcolm Hill (and crew Jim McEwen) – Martin #126
- Peter Gregory – 2.4m #148
- Jake Jones – 303 #6
- Martin Newman – Martin #125
- Kim Sparkes – 303 #3
- Peter Wagner – 2.4m #108
- Steve Farmer – 303 #10
- Mike Blatchford – 2.4m #109
- Jessica (and crew Douglas Haig) 303 #5
- Fay Watson (and crew James Thomas) 303 #8
- Natasha Jones – 2.3. #279
- Louise McSweeney – 303 #1
- Keith Eeles – Liberty #23
Rachel Ibbotts, Tom Phillips, Imogen Fletcher and Bill Garry either retired or did not finish