Cobley Series 15th November

This morning it was blowing a hoolie !  WSW 20 mph with some vicious gusts. Mike A set a relatively short course, 5P, 9S, 4S, 7S and back through the start, but in these conditions that probably seemed a long way to go for those actually sailing.
There were quite a number who decided it was wiser to watch than to swim and some of the eight brave souls who ventured out decided to trade down on sail size. David C and David M went down to a Radial rig, James went down to a 4.7, Roland switched from his National 12 to a Byte, Hadey already had a 4.7 rig so could not go any smaller and William and Chris H were stuck with no option. Adrian who could have gone down to a smaller size decided to stick with his Rooster rig !!
 
 
Pursuit Race
Roland was first to venture out onto the water which gave everyone else the opportunity to see what they were in for !
Eight boats went out to start and many of these capsized before they even managed to start and there were many more capsizes after the start !
Hadey managed a spectacular capsize coming into No 7 at high speed, ramming the buoy and almost somersaulting ! At one point it came close to being an abandoned race, but a third rescue boat was launched and just about saved the day. Some of the helms probably spent more time in the water than on the boat. David M, Roland and Chris H had called it a day before the elapsed time, so the final positions were –
1st David C (Laser); 2nd James P (Laser); 3rd Adrian (Rooster); 4th Hadey (4.7); 5th William (Topper).
 
Handicap Race 
Somewhat surprisingly all five still on the water at the end of the Pursuit Race decided that they wanted to sail the second race !
At the end of the first lap David C led from James with Adrian 3rd and some way further back Hadey 4th and William 5th.
At the end of the second lap these positions had not changed but Mike decided to finish Hadey and William as the leading three had already crossed the line to start their third lap before they had finished their second lap.
David C capsized on the third lap and final lap up near 4, allowing James to nip past. David was catching him on the way back to 7, but James just managed to stay ahead and crossed the line with 12 seconds to spare ! Adrian with his huge sail came home in 3rd.
The final positions were exactly the same as for the Pursuit Race above.
 
Well done to all who braved the conditions, especially to the youngsters William and Hadey who persevered despite numerous capsizes.
 
Thanks to the OOD Team who had a very busy time – Brian M, Colin H, Dean and Nick J and Paul R.