Saturday’s forecast was wet and blustery, and perhaps the reason for the limited number of takers for the two race Celebrity Glass Pursuit. As it turned out, there were some short, heavy, showers, but the wind was lighter than expected.
The 50 min races had Tog in his Solo starting first with the GP chasing just 30 secs later. In the first race Vice Commodore Jon was sailing with Commodore Naomi as a practice for the forthcoming 24 hour race, for which it is rumoured they could be starting on behalf of the club. They quickly caught Tog on the beats, but offwind, places regularly changed if the wind picked up. On rounding the final mark before the finish, Jon had a strong lead but a gust of wind had him looking at the centreboard wondering whether it would take his weight, if he could get on to it! Fortunately they recovered, but it was to be a close finish as seen above.
For the second race, AJ/Sue took control of the GP. AJ blamed his failure to catch Tog on spinnaker problems… Tog’s 1st and 2nd won him the trophy.
Sunday was less showery, but had various short, torrential, downpours. The westerly F2-3, had some good gusts for the reaches, but proved to be very shifty throughout the day. There were a few capsizes, but Steve/Ruth in a Merlin led the handicap fleet to win the morning race with Peter 2nd in his Laser, and Mike/Joanie in their RS200 3rd. Dave/Lynn won in the GPs ahead of AJ/Sue.
The afternoon pennant race just took the small fleet of eight boats to Scarness so they avoided the worst of the Sale Fell down draughts. Nigel/Glenys capsized at the first gybe mark, but retired after getting help to get their mast out of the mud. Steve/Ruth took another win from Dave/Lynn, with Toggle in his Solo 3rd.
The race counted towards Sandra’s Salver for female crews, which Sue is still leading