This weekend was the first Fleet Challenge of the year, in which all classes of boat sail against each other. The weather, however, was not friendly with Saturday being cool, damp at times and a blustery south westerly wind.
Sunday was a little warmer and slightly less windy. The fleet was also a little depleted as some members travelled to Ullswater to compete in the annual Lord Birkett trophy sailed over the full length of Ullswater. Mark Somerville and Joe Roberts in their RS400 did Bassenthwaite proud by finishing 21st out of the 230 entries.
Back at Bassenthwaite 14 craft competed in the Fleet Challenge. This was dominated by Dave and Lynn Lawson in their GP14 who, after handicap calculations were applied, won three of the four races to finish comfortably ahead of Val and Ken Bell also in a GP14. On Saturday Val and Ken practiced a new method of capsize recovery, keeping the spinnaker up while recovering and continuing on the reach!
On Thursday night it was the 10th round of the Night Jar series, The GP14 of Mike Fairlamb / Eric Smith won both the Fleet and personal Handicap categories.