A Club record nineteen DAC Sailors sailed our Scratch Event yesterday.

The conditions were a tad uncomfortable with clear skies and the temperature recording a peak of 36.1^OC around 3pm.

This was tempered by a varying Nor’West wind ranging from 7 up to 13 with gusts to 32 Km/Hr, (4 to 7, gusts to 17 Knots). (This info. courtesy of the Club weather station).

The Course was set to favour this breeze and we accepted all the variations with no changes made.

The Fleet chose “B” sails with one or two variations during the day.

We welcomed Peter Burton sailing #190 from Forster, who joined us for the day’s racing.

It was a busy day for the Race Officers, contending with a large Fleet and a start line which was difficult to monitor. One had to be well over at the start signal to be pinged.

Thank you to those who were nominated for that duty.

This was a quality group of Sailors, Graham Brown and Peter Burton share many titles between them, Peter is the current NSW RC Laser Champion. Rob Lowndes is the current RC Legend Champion in the full size Laser.

Although Graham and Peter grabbed all the wins, several Sailors got between them during racing. To finish in the first six or so across the line was a very good achievement.

The starts were occasionally difficult to read with the swinging breeze causing many conflicts. Judging the lay line to the windward mark also caused quite a few problems.

Graham Brown managed a superb effort to easily win the day. Graham kept Peter Burton at bay to win all his scoring races, his race drops were one for RO duties and a third place. Peter was the only one to challenge Graham with the 2 remaining wins and all places, to secure second for the day. There was a lot of daylight to the rest of the fleet. Rob Lowndes, despite an early start or two, locked in third place with 2 seconds and 2 thirds. Rob was unchallenged with another big gap to those following.

Positions four to nine weren’t separated by that many points and competed well throughout the day.

Scoring a place or two was a good reward. Noel McPherson, Robin Tickner, Philip Hetherington, Terry Hey, Brian Chapman and Barry McCarthy all managed this to complete a good, competitive day’s sailing.

Race winners were Graham Brown 7 and Peter Burton 2.

Graham Brown took the honours for the day to win 1st place on 7 points.

Peter Burton finished in 2nd place on 13 points.

Rob Lowndes finished in 3rd place with 28 points.

The Club Championship now has Noel McPherson in front from Graham Brown and Robin Tickner.

Our next Sail day is Thursday 23^rd March for a Scratch Event.

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