owner/racer in a mixed handicap fleet and I make no appologies for that fact. I do hope that they will nonetheless be of interest to those participating and
This year, as in the past few years, it was a general handicap race, with an eleven boat fleet consisting predominantly of Full Rig Lasers, a couple of Radials, a couple of Streakers, a Solo
and a Mango (sailed single handed with furled jib).
It was bright and sunny with a cool breeze of around the middleof force 4 from the eastern side of the pond. A course was set , starting off the club house with a beat along the north side, a broad reach to south of the Island, a slightly tighter but shorter one to the north and then another beat
to a mark in the middle of the water. Turning this there was a run to the west, a turn north once more to the top of the pond to then a final turn to starboard to begin the next lap.
Ten boats came to the line – the eleventh was a wee bit late and did not arrive until the leading boats were into their second lap – although there were only four boats near the line at the off.
First away was Jonty Freeman (Radial - NSSC) with Paul Ryan (Laser full rig – Hardway SC) close behind and then Alan Simmons (Streaker – Lancing SC) and Rupert Smith (Radial –NSSC) equally close behind him. The rest of the fleet were straggling some way behind.
By the end of the first lap (of the 11 laps the leading boats were to complete) the order was Jonty.F, Paul.R, Rupert.S, Alan.S and Lauernce Venus (Streaker) with just 23 seconds separating the first three and just 2 seconds between the Streakers.
Both of these situations were to stay much the same throughout the entire race with the leading Laser and Radials and the two streakers nip and tuck all the way. The leader of each of these two groups pulling out a few yards only to have his chaser catch right up on the subsequent lap.
Further back in the fleet the order in that first lap was Juilan Dobson (Laser full rig - NSSC) – 6th place – then Bill Giles (Solo - NSSC), Chas Humphries (Laser full rig – NSSC) followed by David Hitchens (Laser full Rig – NSSC)with Mike Rosier (Mango – NSSC) bringing up the rear – Steve Duncan (Laser full rig – NSSC) was still ashore after a late arrival and launching problems.
The only changes in lap 2 were when Mike.R briefly got ahead of David.H however the gusty breeze soon saw him take his first swim of therace and finally Steve.D took to the water. By the end of lap 4 Steve.D had also gained a place ahead of Mike.R whilst the first five boat places remained
unchanged.
Halfway through lap 7 Laurence.V managed to catch a good gust on the second reaching leg, achieve an inside and then pull out a nice little advantage up the following beat sneaking into fourth place. This advantage he held until the beginning of the last lap – the 11th. On the beat along the north side of the pond he tacked towards the shore to make the mark more easily but when tacking back got himself stuck in irons thus allowing Alan.S to get ahead again by sufficient margin to make it in front across the line.
In the leading group Paul.R finanally got ahead of Jonty.F in the last lap but he too had a problem and ended up letting Jonty.F get back ahead and letting Rupert.S through as well. The RO did not have her lap top with her so the results were only calculated later. It was a close run thing with Alan.S as joint winner along with Jonty.F and Laurence.V in third spot.
Results (Provisional):-
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