We turned up on a brooding threatening day with rain at the very least forecast, but nothing really happened. There were a few very light showers but that was it.

Twelve sailors came along to enjoy our Scratch Event. We also had a visitor Brain Bourne, come along to see what we get up to. We hope to see more of him in the future.

As forecast, there was an overcast with a steady east nor’easter, but the water was reasonably flat. The wind ranged from 8 to 15 Km/Hr, so we didn’t have the pressure of last week.

We started out with B sails, then most changed down to C’s before coming back to B’s at the end of the day.

We comfortably completed 10 races with few hookups and rescues. Geoff Lucas had some gear problems which were sorted out.

Again, we used RO’s, and it is good to see everyone step up to do the job. The sailing is much cleaner with the RO’s in place.

We set the course up again with gates top and bottom, basically straight up and down in front of the deck, and after a little of a tickle up, it remained the course for the day. It certainly opened up the options for us to sail the course, and with the more or less constant wind, it was interesting to try different lines up and down between the marks. There seemed to be more options for the approaches to the top mark in particular. The sailing was really competitive, and it felt that you could try things to get a result rather than just follow the boat in front of you. I recall a number of times seeing four or five boats approaching the bottom mark in a line across the course.

Well, I thought I had the day in the bag with 5 wins and a couple of seconds, but Mr. Reliability, Graham Brown turned up the usual heat, and also came up with 5 wins and better follow up races to knock me back to reality. He is so hard to beat over a day’s racing! Great sailing Graham.

Phil Stevenson had a quieter day taking third place. Stephen Deane and Robin Tickner were always nearby together with Peter Close. The higher places were spread through the fleet – Ian Spencer picked up a 3 and a 5; Barry McCarthy took a 4 and a 5; Judy Evans took a 4 and some 6’s; David Moont had a string of 6’s; Geoff Lucas took a string of 5’s, and Steve Crewes had some 7’s, which was unusual for him.

Graham Brown 1st with 14 points.

Noel McPherson 2nd with 15 points.

Phil Stevenson 3rd with 23 points.

Brian Chapman will come up with the Club Championship points on his return. Our next sailing day with be a scratch sailing event on Thursday 27 October.

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