Gillette Series 2 – 25th April 2018

First of all an apology – the date on the Spring Series 8 report should have been the 22nd April !

Now to Wednesday 25th April –

Last week we had a gentle breeze and lovely sunshine. This week it was blowing a hoolie with the wind 18 mph plus, gusting to 30!!

Although plenty of sailors turned up only three boats ventured out.
Ron (Mirror) and Dave L (Laser) only made it past the second mark. Ron had a problem with his mainsail which fell down. He tried to carry on with just a jib but it was pretty much impossible to sail up wind with only the jib. He valiantly tried but gave up in the end. Dave ventured too close to the buoy line got fouled up and decided to call it a day.
Simon (Blaze) had problems as soon as he launched with his sail not tied down properly. He capsized to fix it before the start and then started. He got to the first mark 5 way ahead of the others and then to the bewilderment of the many on lookers disappeared off to the far end of the lake instead of returning to 8. He reappeared some time later. It transpired later he had gone there to capsize in shallow water to further fix his sail. On his return he resumed the correct course. After another capsize at 4 he finally completed the lap. SOOD Curtis decided to finish the race as he was the only man left standing.

So the leader board was somewhat sparse with Simon the only finisher. We have had races abandoned in the past, but I cannot recall a previous race with only one boat finishing!

Thanks to Curtis and the OOD Team of Andy B, Mark H and Nick J.