Into November and racing is held only on Sundays for the Winter Trophy. There was an air of reluctance to get on to the water, but the OD was not going to wait! While Elaine Hunt was trying to work out what else was going to be wrong in William’s boat (she’d already noticed the cunningham, and genniker downhaul, incorrectly rigged), the race started with Steve Hunt, William Carruthers and Bill Smith still some minutes from the line. Steve and Ruth Critchley worked their way through the fleet of RS 300, RS400s, RS800, Vortex and GP14s to eventually win the race on personal handicap.
Bill Smith in an RS800 tried his usual trick of sailing fast, but not for the marks that he was supposed to going for, so he lost ground returning to the correct mark. A capsize after finishing the race was one capsize too many and he didn’t reappear for the second race.
Despite the dropping temperatures, there continues to be a select group in shorts/shorties – brave (or should that be foolhardy?) chaps, but they couldn’t match the hardiness of two swimmers that swam from Ouse Bridge to Mark 4!
The OD opted to have the races back to back (if you can call a 40 minute gap back to back). Again, he didn’t wait for everyone to be at the line before starting. Andy and Phil Smith brought out the 49er for this race, and ended up having a close race with Steve Hunt and pulled out such a lead that both boats had to sail all four laps while the remaining fleet just sailed three.