Penultimate Race - Sunday 4th October.
Posted By admin on October 4, 2009
Damn forecast, wrong again, force 2-3 WNW and slight seas, what happend to the 16kts as i wanted to try my new Mike Pollard No2 genny?
Anyway these conditions brought all the heavy weather sailers onto the water with a fine turn out of 10 boats, conditions were perfect for the COD’s high aspect rig with them all flying full mains and genoas. There was a bit of a dodgy start with rumours of some being over the line but the OOD declared a perfect start so it was off to the Bell Buoy.
The clean starting Delta of Q quickly established a lead followed by the Jaguar of Tom and the Swift of JC who had that well known stock car driver Mike Pollard on the stick, following these three were the mass of COD’s who quickly crowded round the Jaguar and the Swift as the Bell approached. Q rounded first and headed off to Sandwick but on the Swift it was time for a quick assessment of the placings to round the mark, the Jag slightly ahead had rights as did the two COD’s to leeward so it was a case of hold course and gybe after these guys, how the best laid plans of mice etc etc come to grief with the moral being watch the windward boat and even though not close enough to the mark to gybe be prepared to be unceremoniously T boned amidships, strange incantations were heard from the Swift of clucking bell and clucking bankers, now i know why it’s called wildwave but I didn’t know the crew where in the finance sector. Considering no 720 was taken a DQ is expected.
After that mayhem there was a definite shuffle in the order with the three boats leeward of the Swift all rounding without incident and heading to Sandwick. The culprit ironically managed to round just ahead of the Swift, following then were the other COD’s of Mike and Juan with the Leisure of Jim and the very pretty Esk of Rupert, flying a topsail, sweeping up at the rear of the fleet. The Swift came back into contention on the run and another tight rounding looked on the cards but a slight whoops from MP (long time since he’s handled anything Dinghy like) had the Swift rounded up and heading into the Bay leaving the other four to head in close towards the college. As the wind became fluky towards the shore all four tacked back into the bay to be able to lay the mark and start the sausage.
First sausage leg was a fairly simple goosewing affair with the Gybe rounding again making the boats head inshore, a slight wind shift and increase saw some quickly tack in the knock to get back to the mark for the final triangle whilst other held on gambling for a lift as the wind funelled through Castletown, Brian in Amy for once seemed to get it wrong and lost significant time going close and loosing the wind. At the Pier mark it was evident from the Delta’s angle out in front that the wind shift had also built slightly and after rounding it was a nice steady beam reach to the Bell for the final lap. Incident free final lap and looking backwards it was evident the Leisure of Jim was sailing a canny race, watching all in front and making decisons based on what was happening to other boats. At the finsh the Delta of John Q took line honours in 65 minutes with the next 4 boats all finishing within 4 minutes of each other. For full results after the dreaded handicaps have been applied check the results page.
Thanks to John (what recall rule) Hellowell for OOD duties and Alan Preston for bridge duties, without these guys we couldn’t race ………………. and JH, i think it’s rule 29.1 for the start but luckily no one reads this to contradict me if i’m wrong!
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