For the second weekend in a row, there has been a round the lake pennant race which counts towards Sandra’s Salver – clearly a keenly contested award, which goes to the top lady crew over the seven race series, as various women make a special effort to compete. With one final race to go, Elaine Hunt is still in the lead. The pennant race itself was as frustrating as round the lakers get. Although Robbie D and Big E broke away from the fleet early on, at the leeward mark, after 40+ mins, his lead had been reduced to 1’20 from Mike and Kayla in a F15, William and Elaine in a Rs400, and Steve and Ruth in a Merlin Rocket. The return up the lake seemed to have many more holes than the beat down! With spinnakers going up and down like a yoyo, Mike and Kayla got the spinnaker sheet wrapped around their keel, and each time they tried to fix it something else occurred. Mike assures us that Kayla didn’t swear (audibly?!). At that stage Robbie D broke away from Mike and others caught him up. However, it was not until the lead boats were through Scarness that the fleet properly split up, albeit too late for some of the faster handicap boats to beat Mike. Scumper had a stormer of a leg back up the lake, closing the gap on overall winner Robbie D to just 33 secs on adjusted time. Positions 4 – 7 were just 60 secs apart after 90 mins racing.
An current update of the championship positions are posted below.