With ice in the cover, and sailing gloves that have been left in the boat with fingers frozen together, you wouldn’t think anyone would still be sailing in shorts, ah well, you’d be wrong.
After a glorious day on Saturday, Sunday started overcast and patchy wind. However, by the time racing got underway the breeze was generally strong enough for both helm and crew to sit out. Mark Somerville, having had a practice sail with Kirstie in their RS400 last weekend, was keen to get into racing mode. So keen in fact that he managed to pull his genniker halyard out of the mast! Not a problem though, by the time rescue facilities were sorted, Mark and stand in crew Robin Dawson were ready to go. It was Neil and Judith Currie that took the early lead until Steve Hunt and Ruth Critchley got their act together to power through into the lead. This left Mark and Neil to have some close racing that was going to continue into the afternoon race.
The wind did get up sufficiently for Alan Nicholson to get caught out and capsize his RS Vario. Similarly, Jim Christie in his Laser Vortex went for an unscheduled swim.
In the afternoon race Steve Hunt was not going to hang about and left the other three RS400s to battle it out, with some close racing for the first lap, until they shook off William Carruthers. Neil and Mark continued the close racing, and regularly passed each other, but it was Neil that came out ahead at the finish. With results being calculated on a personal handicap basis, Steve Hunt wonders how far ahead he has to be win – why was 1½ laps not enough to beat Malcolm Clayton on handicap? Perhaps, that’s one of the mysteries of sailing that he can ponder when he prepares his speech for the forthcoming annual dinner!