and don’t get caught if you do, which is what happened to Andy T. Having just bought a Laser Vago the instructions were out to determine how to rig it. Stephen Kirkpatrick and T took it out for their 1st sail, and suffered their first capsize having caught their downhaul on the bowsprit.
Another casualty was Neil Garrison who capsized the Dart – not sure why because there wasn’t much wind!
The series comprised six races over the weekend based on personal handicap.
Shunty and Ruth seemed to be in a bit of a spin all day on Saturday – hitting the windward mark in one race resulted in them having to do a penalty turn, and in the next race an incident with Roy led to him doing another couple of turns. It didn’t stop him from making a comeback and winning the race from William and Elaine on the water at least!
The light winds eased as the afternoon went on, and many seemed to be noticing the cold – what a difference from last Saturday. A beautiful evening with mirror like conditions followed.
Shunty’s grappling iron impressively located and retrieved the missing anchor on the second sweep. Phew! (Don’t think Ruth was looking forward to spending more time on the water with the temperatures dropping!)
As for Sunday, well you can’t have everything, especially not sun and wind. As with Saturday, the breeze was generally light, and sufficient to keep the boats moving, but during the 2nd race the wind started to swing from the north leaving the fleet struggling to reach the finish line wherever that was going to be! The OD thought he would be kind and finish Big E at the top of the beat, but as he was a lap behind that wasn’t possible without Big E sailing another lap. This led to confusion and frustration with Shunty and Ruth who thought they had only a few hundred yards to sail until the committee boat left its station, so he opted for a tow ashore. Similarly, Robbie D and Ethan decided to retire. However, the committee boat returned to its station and finished the rest of the boats drifting around the course before they too opted to retire.
With things not looking too promising there were only three takers for the final race, but by the time they finished the lake was mirror like yet again