Streaker Ramblings - Elford Numbum Races 1 & 2 - 05.01.2014

Those of you who are observant will have noted that there was no report of the planned New Year’s Day race. Because of a lack of Race control and Safety volunteers and an appalling weather forecast for the day racing was cancelled.

On Sunday 5^th of January the first races for the 2014 Elford Numbum series were due to take place. At about 8.00am that morning there was a grey Mackerell sky with an ominous deep pink tinge across the eastern horizon – 'Sailors/Shepherds warning' of things to come. There was no breeze up on the heights of Hangleton and none on arrival at Piddinghoe- where we were greeted by a padlock that refused to open on the main gate to the car park. After several un-successful attempts, the Rear Commodore Piddinghoe Stuart Ford, arrived and opened the Fisherman’s lock allowing all to enter. Apparently someone had tried to force the lock, as they had the compound lock, damaging both in their attempts.

Once inside the compound Alan removed his frost and Ice covered boat cover and re-fitted his wire traveller and replaced his tattered burgee – blown to shreds in the previous week’s gales. The fleet for the first race of the day was considerably reduced, to ten boats, from the last Iceberg series races. The pond was like a sheet of glass without a single ruffle on the surface and upon launching at about 10.35am there was still not enough breeze to get away from the slipway. Finally a tiny breeze filled in and by the first start had increased to about top end force one. During the racing it increased to a top end force three with the occasional gust into force four.

Rupert Smith was RO for the day, along with son Brendan, and he set a course around the outside of all the marks starting to the north of the clubhouse, with an angled back line and short beat to the mark off the clubhouse in the south western corner of the pond, From there there was a broad reach along the south side with a gybe in the south east corner, a broad reach/run behind the Island to a mark mid way along the east side. The next leg was a close fetch come beat to a mark off the Fisherman’s Bay and then a beat back to the mark off the clubhouse, ignoring the start line ODM.

At the start the line was still somewhat biased with the shore end favoured. Laurence Venus (Streaker) claimed the bank end but misjudged the position of the line and was over at the gun and had to return to start correctly. Alan Simmons who had been leading along the line slowed and did a 360 turn to stay behind the line and having to tack once again to avoid Terry Jones (Laser full rig) and Bill Wates (Laser full rig) who then sailed over the top of him. Michael Veale and Mike Rosier (RS200) and Louise Currell with Darren Field in their newly acquired RS200 started closer to the ODM but found they had a good bit further to sail to reach the winward mark so it was Terry, with Bill.W  outside him,  who turned the mark just ahead of Alan and set off down the reach.

By the time these three had reached the gybe Terry was still in front but Alan had water on Bill and pulled into second and passed him on the following reach. Behind this group Louise and Darren had caught and passed Bill Giles (Solo) whilst Laurence was lying sixth but also passed Bill.W on the second reach. By the end of the first lap Louise had caught and passed both Terry and Alan. Bill.W was lying third just ahead of newcomer (to the pond this year) Roger McCall (Laser full rig) and Laurence was 5^th. Bill.G was 6th ahead of Terry with Graham Hardy (Laser full rig) 8^th, EddieLansley (Laser full rig) 9^th and Michael bringing up the rear at 10^th.
In Lap 2 Louise led the way round with Alan dropping back a little and Roger closing on him passing Bill.W on the way. Laurence was still lying 5^th but closing on Bill.W  and with Terry and Graham both overtaking Bill.G. Eddie was still in front of Michael at the back.
Lap 3 saw Louise still in front and Roger passing Alan to go second. Laurence claimed Bill.W’s scalp to go 4^th. Terry was still 6th in front of Graham and Eddie who has passed Bill.G but Michael still languished at 10^th and last.
By the end of lap4 Roger had taken the lead, passing Louise on the way. Laurence had pulled out everything and went past Alan and Louise to lie 2^nd. Bill.W still held on to 5^th place with Terry, Graham and Eddie staying 6^th.7^th and 8^th whilst Michael had consigned Bill.G to last place.
Lap 5 saw no further place changes whilst Laurence closed the gap on Roger from 14 second to eight but was unable to improve in the last and final lap 6 where the order was unchanged.
With the handicaps applied the order was Laurence in 1^st place, Alan in 2^nd, Roger 3^rd and Louise 4^th.

Race 2, with regard to the forecasts, was started at 11.55am with Rupert and Brendan going afloat in a committee boat to add to making the line a little less biased. Alan was playing with strings in his boat, to limit the travel of the mainsheet blocks on his newly installed wire traveller and was not well placed when the gun went. It was Laurence who got the flier rounding the windward mark in the lead and never substantially challenged throughout the 7 laps sailed. Roger was close behind over the line with Michael  third away. By the end of the lap the order was Laurence 1^st, and tied with Roger, Michael 3^rd, Eddie 4^th, Bill.W 5^th, Alan 6^th, Graham 7^th, Terry 8^th, Louise 9^th, Bill.G 10^th and Jamie Smith (Pico) 11^th.

Lap 2 saw Laurence edge ahead of Roger (2 seconds)with Michael just one second behind him. Alan had climbed to 4^th with Graham 5^th. Eddie had dropped two places to 6^th and Bill.W  likewise dropped two to 7^th. The next four positions were as in lap 1.
Lap 3 saw the top three still in close contention with just 5 seconds between Laurence and Roger who was 14 seconds in front of Michael. Alan was still ahead of Eddie and he ahead of Bill.W with Terry behind but in front of Louise with Graham having slipped back two places to be behind them in 9^th place with just Bill.G and Jame bringing up the rear.
Lap 4 saw Laurence pull away from Roger by 24 seconds but with Michael just 1 second away in third,.whilst Alan (in 4^th) was  some 30 seconds adrift, Eddie being  just a further 6 seconds behind him. Next came Bill.W with Graham, having passed Terry, in 7^th spot. Louise had dropped back one to 9^th – having been seen to take a dip whilst attempting to gybe, with the Gennaker aloft, at the south eastern corner mark. Bill.G remained stubbornly in 10 with Jamie astern.
Lap 5 had Roger pull back a couple of seconds on the leader Laurence whilst Edddie drove ahead of Alan with a 20 second advantage at the end of the lap. Both Graham and Terry overtook Bill.W but Louise remained behind them but ahead of Bill.G.
The 6^th and penultimate lap had Roger 14 seconds behind Laurence with Michael another 11 seconds further back and Alan passed Edddie to complete the lap 17 seconds ahead. The second half of the fleet remained in the same order.
For the 7^th and final lap Laurence, still out in front, increased his lead to 27 seconds over Roger whilst Michael dropped back to be 16 seconds behind Roger.with Alan another 30 seconds behind him and stretched the gap ahead of Eddie to 48 seconds. Louise recovered to 6^th place in front of Graham, Terry and Bill.W.
The result of the race, after applying the handicaps was a win for Laurence with Alan taking second place again and Roger doing likewise in third with Michael fourth and Eddie fifth.
As stated at the begining of this report the breeze did rise to the lower end of force 4, just sufficient to allow the odd marginal plane on the offwind legs and all bar one boat stayed upright throughout both races. Even after packing away the boats the breeze had not increased noticeably  - but the sun did come out to play.
Alan.S 1700

Results:-

R1

Start: Start 1, Finishes: Place

Posn	Class	SailNo	Club	HelmName	CrewName	Elapsed	BCE	Points
1	Streaker	1706	NSSC	Laurence Venus		37.34	0.00.00	1.0
2	Streaker	1700	Lancing SC	Alan Simmons		38.36	0.01.02	2.0
3	Topper	4	NSSC	Josh Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Laser Radial	7757	NSSC	Rupert Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Laser	177611	NSSC	John Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Pico	Purple	NSSC	Brendan Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Laser	191067	Pevensey Bay	Roger McCall		37.26	0.01.52	3.0
8	RS 200	285	NSSC	Louise Currell	Darren Field	37.40	0.03.13	4.0
9	Laser	133416	NSSC	Bill Wates		38.55	0.03.21	5.0
10	Laser	30678	NSSC	Terry Jones		39.30	0.03.56	6.0
11	Laser	163443	NSSC	Graham Hardy		39.43	0.04.09	7.0
12	Laser	61724	NSSC	Eddie Lansley		39.55	0.04.21	8.0
13	Solo	3754	NSSC	Bill Giles		36.15	0.04.57	9.0
14	RS 200	582	NSSC	Micheal Veale	Mike Rosier	40.14	0.05.47	10.0

R2

Start: Start 1, Finishes: Place

Posn	Class	SailNo	Club	HelmName	CrewName	Elapsed	BCE	Points
1	Streaker	1706	NSSC	Laurence Venus		38.32	0.00.00	1.0
2	Streaker	1700	Lancing SC	Alan Simmons		39.46	0.01.14	2.0
3	Topper	4	NSSC	Josh Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Laser Radial	7757	NSSC	Rupert Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Laser	177611	NSSC	John Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Pico	Purple	NSSC	Brendan Smith		OOD		3.0
3	Laser	191067	Pevensey Bay	Roger McCall		38.59	0.02.30	3.0
8	RS 200	582	NSSC	Micheal Veale	Mike Rosier	39.15	0.03.54	4.0
9	Laser	61724	NSSC	Eddie Lansley		40.34	0.04.05	5.0
10	Laser	163443	NSSC	Graham Hardy		41.14	0.04.45	6.0
11	Laser	30678	NSSC	Terry Jones		41.15	0.04.46	7.0
12	Solo	3754	NSSC	Bill Giles		38.08	0.05.06	8.0
13	RS 200	285	NSSC	Louise Currell	Darren Field	41.04	0.05.43	9.0
14	Laser	133416	NSSC	Bill Wates		42.32	0.06.03	10.0
15	Pico	4	NSSC	Jamie Smith		38.05	0.12.32	11.0