Saturday morning started off bright with light winds. An hour before racing started, the wind filled in, potential sailors were looking upwind at white horses, and it was lashing it down! However, the squall passed through quickly, and all but one GP decided to go racing.
This weekend’s Fleet Challenge is a series of six races with results calculated on a personal handicap basis. So with three races to squeeze in, the courses were short and sharp. The swinging wind created an advantage on the beat, for those boats that were in the right place at the right time! This was noticeable in the F15 fleet as positions changed dramatically on some of the beats, though in each race the order settled down with Mike/Kayla taking the lead from Ian/Lezli-Ann the Tim/Ian.
The shorts legs frustrated some of the F15 sailors as they felt by the time they had their spinnakers set, it was time to gybe, or take them down. The gybes did prove challenging at times, but there was only one capsize, and that was on a beat by Alan Jones in his Laser.
After three races, Alistair Duncan has a strong lead with three firsts ahead of Paul Clark.
Sunday started off bright and sunny, and it stayed so all day, despite being deserately cold at times. The wind shifted at imes, as it does, and faded occasionally too. Two short races were sailed before lunch, and it was the OD’s intention to have a longer, round the lake, race in the afternoon. Kayla used her best persuasive powers, with the aid of her meringues, over lunch to disuade Mik from sending the fleet around the lake. It almost worked, as the course only took the fleet to mark 15. Alistair Duncan may feel dis-heartened that his strong overnight lead was eroded away, and then he opted to go for a walk while the last race was on, only to find that Paul Clark’s three 1sts on Sunday were sufficient to win him the Fleet Challenge A trophy.
Perhaps the greatest excitement of the day was cutting through The Bates’ anchor warp with the prop! Fortunately the floating tail made it easy to recover, and the warp has been expertly spliced back together.