I drove over the Drummoyne Bridge and noted the wind was from the west…  not a good start, but by the time I arrived at DAC, a sea breeze had kicked in, making everyone feel lifted a little, given some of the previous winds we have had.

First, we all expressed our best wishes to Geoff Lucas for a speedy recovery, and hope to see him back on the deck soon.

We also welcomed back Barry McCarthy and Peter Close – both “old hands” with us; but always good to see you after absences.

Trevor Bowden is still having radio problems which will hopefully be solved by next week; so he volunteered to do the RO and scoring jobs for us – thanks for that Trevor.

Peter Hirschl was another who was having boat problems, and compounded it by dropping his transmitter into the water.  Hopefully, it has been flushed out quickly enough to have it back in service when it has dried out.

So, onto the racing.  It was very much a mixed bag today, with A and B sails appearing together pretty much all day.  

If you changed down to a B sail, the wind dropped out for you didn’t it…. and if you changed up to an A sail, you got worked over with too much sail.  It was that sort of day.

It was pretty hot and oppressive on the deck, with no real shade to get away from it; with the lower sun now in Autumn. It got up to 29 deg. but it felt more than that.

The wind ranged from 3.8 to 5.9 knots and gusts up to 10.8 while we were sailing.  However, it was rather fickle in the middle, with some occasional holes, and some rather big swings in the breeze from NE to NW and back.

With tight race control by Trevor we got in 10 races… not bad for a larger fleet.

We had 16 sailors with Lasers, and one ring in with a whatdoyoucallit???  a DF 95.

Many boats shared the placings in each race, but with 5 wins, Graham Brown would have to be the man of the day.

Race winners were Graham Brown 5, Robin Tickner 1, Stephen Deane 2, Martin Thearle 1 and Rob Lowndes 1.

Graham Brown took the honours for the day to win 1st place on 16 points.

Robin Tickner finished in 2nd place on 19 points.

Stephen Deane finished in 3rd place with 35 points.

The Club Championship now has Martin Thearle in front from Phil Stevenson and Robin Tickner.

Our next Sail day is Thursday 16th April for a Scratch Event. I’ll forward forecast details closer to the day.

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