There was a good southerly breeze to start the Sunday. The forecast was for it to pick up slightly, with the rain holding off till late afternoon.
What more could we ask for?
The wind held, and probably picked up leading to some exciting offwind legs – the single handers went for various swims, as did Scumper and Zefer (four capsizes at the last count!). Nigel Lewis had a fresh crew after yesterday’s exploits and managed to capsize on top of the windward mark – bye bye to another burgee!
Ginge and Jose finally ventured out in their new boat together – much fun, many screams, even without the spinnaker! Perhaps the funniest bit was listening to the howls of laughter as Jose put her drysuit on……
The afternoon race was a round the lake pennant, not that anyone particularly expected to go round in such conditions. However OD Toggle set the first mark as 12 – shame he didn’t check that it was actually there! A rescue boat ended up being the substitute mark.
Shunty opted to drive the front end of Mike Moore’s F15 – wimp! The wind seemed to ease as the small fleet got further down the lake, but the swell didn’t and several waves kept crashing over the boats and swamping them. The fleet of two RS400s and two F15s stayed relatively close together on the beat 40+ min beat, and it was Tim Chittenden and Ian Macpherson that reached the windward mark first with Mike Moore and Shunty on their tail. William and Elaine were next and finally Scumper and Zefer. All that was to change on the downwind legs such that the order was reversed! The wind came back with a vengeance and there was some good planing conditions.
Scumper did break away but was caught up again by William at 15, but Scumper got the gusts to take him away although not enough to win the race on handicap which went to Mike.
PS The forecast was right! However, within an hour of the race finishing, the rain had passed through and the wind faded – what a lovely evening!
During the afternoon the MG Owners’ Club had opted to run a treasure hunt from the club. Little did they realise that it was one of Claire’s Bass Week specials! Not certain whether they all actually completed the course, or indeed ever returned!…
Saturday started with a slightly less than forecast SE breeze enabling the training boats to get on the water for the first time this year.
Ginge and Jose are ready to get back on the water with the launch of their new boat in the GP fleet – Avalon. However, Jose thought better of the conditions and the first race was sailed by sons Rich and Phil.
The wind came coming and going but there was a lot of white horses to be seen before the first race, though there were not many takers. By the time the race started the wind was starting to swing from the SW, the beat had been lost, and there were plenty of holes as the fleet were in the shadow of Sale Fell. This made the course challenging, especially as it was a pursuit! Typically for this season the wind was again blustery! Nigel Lewis was one of the few to get caught out by large gusts and he lost another burgee to Neptune. The Mirror fleet had opted to conserve their energy (or so they say) for the championship racing
The second race had a better beat, but the course again took the fleet under Sale Fell, so there were long lulls between the gusts unless boats spotted the logic of taking the left hand side of the run to try and stay in some wind! William and Elaine got it right the first time and managed to catch up Steve and Ruth, but taking a chance down the middle the second time didn’t work for them and Steve broke away big time. The wind did its worst on the final run for William and he could but watch the Mirror fleet, led by Toddy come down on the wind and catch him up! Mik had a problem just before reaching the finishing line, and did not actually finish. Ethan was again sailing well with a 4.2m Topper rig, and despite several hails to Toddy that he was out of control (Toddy or Ethan??), Ethan survived the conditions, finished the race, and capsized immediately after crossing the finish line!