Race Report for Sunday 25th

Report from Roger Day

 

With a brisk north east wind blowing on a sunny afternoon ten boats took to the start line for the
first race. The first leg was a beat along the whole length of the lake and by the time the fleet
reached the windward mark the fleet had already started to see the expected spread with
Phantoms leading a gaggle of Supernova and others classes in the expected order. The only
exception was Iona Reid lagging behind after having to visit the shore and missed the start.
Kevin Milton and Jon Adams swapped places a couple of times before Kevin failed to keep the
sticky up bit pointing skyways and managed to break his tiller extension in the process of
capsizing resulting in a retirement and leaving Jon to circulate in front of three Supernova. These
finished with Kevin Last leading Rob Corner by a small margin and Andy Goodman a little
further behind.
The second race stated with just six boats on the start line in very similar conditions to the first
race. On the first lap, at the end of the downwind leg, from the bank it appeared Louis Mok in his
Laser Radial was luffing the Solo of Peter Hampshire who was crowded out from clearing the
mark, but did he have an overlap? No formal protest received but we do know Peter hit the mark
and in his attempt to take a penalty turn, he capsized and so lost a lot of ground. Peter then made
another error as he rounded the final mark and capsized again letting Malcolm Davidson slip
through just yards from the finish. With a very mixed group of boats there was very little close
racing after the incident between Louis and Pater and the fleet became very well spaced out
along the whole length of the lake. Jon Adams, not surprisingly, took line honours from Kevin Last
followed several minutes later by Andy Goodman. Louis Mok, Malcolm Davidson and Peter
Hampshire followed.
During all this action a small number of members sat on the clubhouse balcony analysing the
performance of those sailing and solving club issues whilst consuming a little refreshment under
the somewhat relaxed Covid restrictions.