Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club

Well, that was a pretty decent evening, I thought. Warm, reasonably sunny and a bit of breeze about. Course - well what was set was a long beat, a long run, and a couple of shortish shy reaches to link them together. However to an extent the wind had other ideas, and it didn't quite work out like that. However, we were tacking up all the beats and gybing down all the runs, so it wasn't too bad.

The first drama I really recall was the fast start... There was quite a big shift in the last 30 seconds or so, and somehow a couple of us quite lost our bearings. I was the worst offender and was frantically looking round the front of the jib for the pin mark when round the back of the mainsail might have been a better bet. So definitely an OCS flag., and it seemed a long way to go back...

On the first lap the wind was reasonably square though, and it was a reasonably competitive beat if you hadn't taken almost a minute and a half to thread your way back between the other boats to start again... The RS200s looked to have found a very good way up the beat, and I think were almost into the back of the Laser fleet, which seems very early... 

In fact that was the whole story of the race for me: it was a real struggle to get back the time and catch the RS200s, and the run especially was a real minefield... The wind generally was backing - looking at my trace I see to going round anticlockwise steadily for the first three laps, but lap 4 was much the same direction as lap three. This meant that the first shy reach was very shy - certainly much too high for any thought of kites, and on the last couple of laps it was becoming a struggle to make it on one tack. The other reach, on the other hand, was quite a stormer for the RS200s and 400 spinnaker boats, fully powered up and going for it, especially on the later laps.

The RS200s were really going great guns. Harry/James were ahead of Ian/Clare, in the early part of the race, and they were also well up with the 400 much of the time. At the finish though Ian and Clare really got the run to perfection, and they actually finished first on the water, past the last Solo and overtaking the RS400 as well as Harry and James.

So results. Ian and Clare won. Yes, it wasn't a Solo, and the first time this season that a two hander has won. Rob Pettit and Paul Playle were second and third in Solos though: the world hasn't turned upside down. 4th was Kyo Wong in a Topper - and without anything much in the way of a last lap wind drop to help either, it was genuine speed that did it. Harry and James got 5th, and John Magrath 6th in a Laser.

Unsurprisingly Kyo won the Personal handicap race, with Harry 2nd. Ellie Wall picked up third in another Topper, Ian and Clare 4th, Lloyd Hogbin 5th and Rob Pettit 6th, both in Solos.

Series wise the leaders are unchanged. There are still 5 races to go though, so its a while before it gets purely mathematical.