Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club

This is a customer service announcement on behalf of the Laser fleet... Please note that full rig Lasers start the Anniversary race on the first start under the H flag with the fast handicap boats...

It was pretty horrible at rigging time - a good Force 6 with loads of rain. A significant percentage of those present decided discretion was the part of getting wet, cold and uncomfortable. Fate, Murphy, or whoever/whatever naturally then decided that the rain and wind should abate some for the race - we even saw some sun at times... I wouldn't want to give you the impression that it was anything other than very breezy though.

As suggested above the fast fleet set off without the majority of the full rig Lasers. Carl and Julie Mayhew took an early lead, but with Peter Curtis in rather closer attendance than they might have liked. The wind went round a fair bit for the start sequence, giving considerable port end bias for the start sequences, but that was nothing compared to the race, where what was a spinnaker reach on lap one had turned into a reasonable beat by laps 4/5, whilst the original beat was more of a reach...

Gareth Griffiths took an early lead amongst the Solos, mixing it with the (late starting) Lasers much of the time. To be quite honest the race is something of a blur for most participants, with much wind and speed interspersed with a certain amount of swimming... Most notable, perhaps, was Andrew Ford's last leg in his Solo, which he hurtled down at considerable speed, very nearly managing to pip Arthur Phillips, who had thought he was well clear, for second Solo.

Results wise Gareth G, who was flying upwind, won the race by an astonishing four minutes on handicap. Peter Curtis was second, Carl Mayhew third, Arthur Phillips 4th, by one second from Andrew Ford, and David Simpson 5th, sporting a Radial rig.

With two races in the series gone we can think about overall results... Without discards the top places all go to those who fished both races of course... Peter Curtis (RS300) leads, with Arthur Phillips (Solo) 2nd, Tony Butler (Laser) 3rd, and James and Harry Curtis (Feva) 4th. And with the Personal Handicaps Tony Butler is in first place on tie break from James and Harry Curtis, Malcolm Barnes (Solo) 3rd and David Clark (Solo) 4th.