At 9.00 am, normal leaving time for the trip to Piddinghoe, it was completely grey overcast and a stiff breeze was blowing from the South West. The ‘Windguru’ forecast for the day was 19 knots (a good top end force 5) and it was raining lightly, not an auspicious start. On arrival at the pond the safety boat crew were there and one other ‘potential’ sailor, Bill Wates. Alan Simmons fetched out his anenometer which read up to12 knots by the flagpole but one could see the gusts across the water and it was not inviting and he was not convinced that sailing, for him, was a good idea.. A hot coffee was called for and then Rupert Smith arrived – ‘but I haven’t got a boat’ were his first words. Just before 10.30 Paul Ryan arrived and it did appear that the wind had eased so there was a rush for the four of them to rig and sail.
The course Kay set was another figure of eight, similar to last Sunday, starting with a short beat (3 metres?) and then a run across the pond to the eastern side – dead downwind – to a mark just off the shore but north of the Island. The next leg was a beat to a mark in the southeast corner of the pond, followed by a very brisk reach towards the north east. The lap concluded with another beat along the northern side to the finish just off the clubhouse.
The start sequence commenced with Bill Wates (Laser Radial – NSSC) capsizing between the five and one minute sound signals. He recovered in time for the off but nobody else was really ready for it anyway. The first boat actually away was Rupert Smith (NSSC) sailing single handed in his Mirror but within seconds Paul Ryan (Laser full rig – Hardway SC) had passed him and was off on the run. Just behind them was Alan Simmons (Streaker – Lancing SC) and bringing up the rear was Bill.W.The breeze, at first reasonable, soon began to build again and the gusts came fast and furious from ever changing directions. This made both the upwind and downwind legs quite twitchy.
Paul R began to pull away from Alan.S who was struggling to keep control of his boat most of the time but somehow succeeded in staying upright until the last beat of his 6th lap. He never saw the gust that tipped him in and whilst attempting to recover went over again. By that time Paul.R, who had been sailing each lap in about 7 minutes, lapped him but on his own final lap he too suffered a knock down from which he quickly recovered, although he had more than enough time to beat Alan, the only other finisher.Rupert .S who had been in 3rd spot on the water suffered a broken Kicker during his fifth lap and rapidly retired ashore – too dodgy to go downwind without that. Bill .W who had suffered his first invertion before the real start continued to practice this acytivity, was seen in the reeds at least once, could not remember if it was 8 or 10 capsizes in total and then missed out the finish mark – so he learnt after coming ashore - but still bore a grin from ear to ear.
Results (Unofficial/Preliminary) :-
1st. Paul Ryan, 2nd. Alan Simmons. Both Rupert Smith and Bill Wates did not finish.
The consensus was that this had been a very hard race and that it was time to go home for a recovery snooze.
Alan.S 1700.
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