The wind was there at the start of the day, but was from the wrong direction and then faded again. The answering pennant was raised, so sailors thought they could be waiting for a sea breeze before taking to the water. Glorious day though!
The wind settled down from the south after a while, although the forecast direction was from the east. There was a fear that the sea breeze would come in and cause havoc, so racing was delayed a while.
With a lack of OD, Herb went for a shore based start which resulted in a busy start line as it was not exactly an unbiased line! Some of the fleet went right towards Peel Wyke and others stayed out in the breeze. The ones that went right had the advantage and got some lifts up the shore, but positions did chop and change. The wind came through in phases, but three of the RS400s managed to break away sufficiently to take 1st, 2nd and 3rd
The second race was the RNLI Pennant, and took the fleet around the lake. Again the fleet started from a shore based line although we’re certain that the far end of the line was too far away for Herb to really tell if anyone was over! Robbie D and Big E took an early lead with Scumper and Toggle on their tail. There was a good beat up the lake in reasonably consistent airs, which took just over 35 mins. But the other fleets came down on slightly better gusts and Mike Fairlamb and Eric Smith only just lost out to Robbie D by 30 secs on handicap
The Youth Squad managed to sail the first two of their Sunday series (the previous 4 having been cancelled due to too much wind!). Joe Watkins continues to master the fleet with another two wins
In the end, it turned out to be an excellent days racing complimented by sunshine!