Firstly, thank you to Noel McPherson who came out of his “retirement” to take over racing and reports for the last 8 weeks and to Graham Brown who continues to set practical courses for our sailing.

Further thanks go to Mick Costa for our scoring and to Trevor Bowden who manned the tender for course setting and retrieval.

We had seventeen DAC sailors come along for our Handicap day yesterday.

The breeze kicked in early with peaks of 38 Km/Hr. from the Nor’West, (20 knots). There were gentle patches but with no hesitation, we all chose D sails for the day. A light chop developed during the racing.

The temperature sat around 22^oC which made for very pleasant Winter sailing.

“D” sails can really romp along with a breeze but sadly fail in the lulls. Some of our starts had many boats bunching up at the line as actual handicap times were missed.

Our Champion of the day was Trevor Bowden. Trevor started on a modest handicap and really made the most of it. He had just the 1 win but with 3 second places and all his finishes at 6 or better scored 22 points for the trophy. Paula Reilly looked to be in the box seat with her 3 wins but had settle for second place on 25 points. Martin Thearle normally has a battle on handicap days with his 65 secs. but he mastered the conditions well. Martin scored 27 points with his win and all high finishes.

There was a gap to the rest which was led by Richard Thorpe. Richard finished with 2 places with Lew Verdon with Judy Evans, Tim Alexander and Graham Brown also taking a place or two. I guess the frustration prize goes to Bruce Paterson. Bruce won races 3 and 8 but with 2 beachings in the nearby shallows had to settle towards the back in the fleet. I found that not taping the drain hole gave me quite a bit of extra ballast for the gusts and chop but not so good for the lulls.

Race winners were, Trevor Bowden 1, Paula Reilly 3, Martin Thearle 1, Rob Lowndes 1, Phil Stevenson 1 and Bruce Paterson 2.

Trevor Bowden took the honours for the day to win 1st place on 22 points.

Paula Reilly finished in 2nd place on 25 points.

Martin Thearle finished in 3rd place with 27points.

The Club Championship now has Martin Thearle in front from Phil Stevenson and Noel McPherson.

Our next Sail day is Thursday 9th July for a Scratch Event.

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