Sunshine, a relatively warm wind, and white horses greeted sailors for another weekend series. Though the conditions were hard work, there was some exciting reaches, and several challenging gybes (which caught out numerous boats), all adding to some close racing.
Scumper led the handicap fleet, and though Toggle did break through to lead the 2nd race for a while, Scumper took the honours in both races. Peter Ballard was squeezed out of the start line by Banter, and lost almost 50 secs in the process. He made up a lot of ground, but with only 13 secs between 2nd and 4th places he was left wondering what might have been as he finished 4th behind Jim and Toggle. In the 2nd race, the wind had eased significantly and the Vareos took the first three places – Toggle coming 2nd and Banter 3rd.
Mike/Kayla led the F15s with Ian/Lezli-Ann chasing in each race.
In the GPs Dave/Ken led but gave Mike/AJ a chance when they hit the windward mark and had to do a turn. Mike subsequently retired as strands of a shroud started to ping apart!
Wind and rain forecast. Wind and rain delivered! Too blustery for sailing so it was an early finish. If only those F15 sailors had believed the forecast they wouldn’t have left their boats on moorings overnight, and then had to get togged up to bring them ashore without even racing!
Despite best efforts no-one was able to persuade Jim to go and demonstrate whether the conditions would have been suitable for racing, but he did get a compliment from Herb when he was told that he had improved a little. Not bad for 25 years Jim thought…
Saturday’s overnight leaders, each with two firsts, instantly became series champions.