With a light wind about 8 mph from the North, Adrian set a short “beat” to 6 then 8s, 5s, Xp (next to one of the safety boats moored to the bank near the usual start flagpole) and back through the start. The flag end of the line was the clubhouse mast and the pin was next to No 8, so there was little room to manoeuvre behind the line at the start!
17 starters today and only three of these were not Lasers, Chris was out in his Comet as usual, Nev was single handed in his Leader and Dean and Nick were out in the Vago.
There was some close racing with lots of passing and repassing, partly because No 6 and X acted as pinch points as the wind was very light and variable at these marks.
At the end of the first lap Steve S (Aero 7) led back through the start line, which was a re-run of last week except he had switched horses from his Solo to the Aero. Jon came through in 2nd with Sylvia 3rd, Mike A 4th, Chris 5th and Mark 6th. Then there were the Lasers of Dave I, Ken, Rod, and Dave L before Nev popped up in his Leader followed by more Lasers, Curtis, Ralph and Rick. Dean & Nick were next in the only two man boat out today with Franz and Alistair bringing up the rear.
Over the next few laps Steve steadily increased his lead whilst Sylvia and Jon had a great battle for 2nd spot with Mark close behind these two. On the second lap there were quite a few close encounters, but the overall positions did not change much apart from Alistair making up three places.
There was a similar pattern on the third lap with greatest gain made by Dave L moving up from 10th to 5th and this was repeated on the fourth lap, but this time Ralph had got going and was up from 13th to 5th pushing Dave L down one place.
By the end of the fifth lap Steve was miles ahead leaving Sylvia and Jon battling for 2nd place. Mark was still 4th and Ralph and Ken seemed to have established themselves in 5th and 6th positions. Nev had joined the midfield Laser battle moving up to 7th pushing Mike A, who was having a great scrap with Dave L, Dave I and Rod, down to 8th. Then there was another epic battle taking place between Franz, Dean & Nick, Chris H, Rick, Curtis and Alistair for the lantern rouge.
Chris H received the gun at the end of this lap, which caused a bit of consternation as he was not actually the last boat.
The sixth and last lap saw no change in the first seven positions, but Mike A lost three places to his fellow competitors en route to X , which moved them all up one place. The battle at the back was won by Dean & Nick and behind them Rick and Franz crossed the line together in the same time, closely followed by Curtis and Alistair.
Final positions on the water were –
1st Steve S; 2nd Sylvia; 3rd Jon; 4th Mark; 5th Ralph; 6th Ken.
On handicap the first three should retain their positions, but Chris (despite one lap less or perhaps because of one lap less!) should move up to 4th with Nev moving up to 5th leaving Mark 6th.
Thanks to Adrian and the OOD Team of Peter S, Nick T and Andy K ( and perhaps Bernadette and/or Sian – but not inscribed on the race sheet for posterity)
