Spring Pursuit 10 – Racing Report
There was an amazing turn out of 32 boats in the lovely sunshine!! Paul and his team set a long course, with boats crossing each other in the middle of the lake – one sailor was heard to say “…it was the worse course he had ever sailed, trying to remember where you were going…”
Despite that, we saw Hugh back in his Byte; Pat and Gordon in their Mirrors; Newton, Steve and Adrian all flying their colourful spinnakers; Sylvia sailing again for the first time since her injury last August; and even Alice taking part in her first Sunday race, coming all the way from Lewisham to take part, and she wasn’t last in the Laser fleet – well done Alice. It was a first for Ryan too, a pursuit race in his New Topper, well done Ryan.
Paul sensibly dragged buoy 6 out into the wind, which came and went through out the race.
The sunshine saw Bill D, Colin and Bill C, helping with the launching of boats – the slipway was very busy….
There was some interesting racing with Roland and Chris getting becalmed briefly, while a gaggle of Lasers, Peter in his Enterprise and Newton in his Laser 2000 caught them up, very frustrating!
With the shifting winds the fleet stayed together in little clusters – Dave had an interesting experience at buoy 6, hitting it, another boat and capsizing and then having to do umpteen turns……nice one Dave!! But it was not long before he had caught up again.
As the 90 min hooter sounded it was difficult to keep track of the finishing places – Paul was seen dashing into the clubhouse clutching the race sheet to work out the placings to everyone’s satisfaction.
For final results see the results page on the web site….the Jolly Sailor ‘lost the plot’ as well!!
The afternoon saw plenty with some 15 boats, cruising, practicing for their next training, overseen by Sylvia in the safety boat, trying out her new skills from her previous day’s training in how to rescue capsized boats with Richard and Brian, While over on the ‘beach’ the Brooks family and friends, were celebrating Gary’s birthday….though he assured us it was not a ‘big birthday’ he had bought himself a new boat, which was launched with ceremony and pink bubbly!!
A very pleasant Sunday afternoon was had by all – not sure about Brian’s chemistry lesson going on in the clubhouse…..a complete foreign language for most of us!!
Don’t forget to send photos and news to the Jolly Sailor – email address on the back of your yearbook.