All morning it looked like there may not be a race because the wind was intermittent  (non-existent mostly) and occurring in different parts of the lake. A flagged buoy was laid in the middle of the western part of the lake to make use of whatever wind there was at race start time.

The race was started between ‘C’ and the commando, the course being shouted out to the competitors.  The first mark was the flagged buoy then to ‘B’ and finally ‘C’, all marks being taken to starboard. There was sufficient wind for all the boats to cross the start line although a number of 303s had minds of their own returning to the start line to the obvious frustration of the helms. The 2.4s again had an overlapped start and probably a little more wind.

There was more wind during the race’s 40 minutes than there had been earlier but there were holes in the wind and bunches of boats appeared. When the wind returned the interference from other boat’s sails close by made it a lottery which boats got away. Boats that stayed away from the bunches generally improved their positions by getting the best wind over their sails, even if their course was longer.

Peter Gregory took three laps to get into the lead but the other 2.4s had more of a battle this week with the 303s of Paul and Fay, crewed by Bruce and Tony respectively,  separating them at the finish.

There are four more races left in the series but we already have ten people that have completed five races to qualify for a series position. The latest qualifier is Peter Gregory who immediately jumped into first position with five first finishes, probably an unassailable lead. Behind Peter there is all to play for with the next five boats having scores from 12 to 17. The positions between David, Kim, Mike Blatchford, Mark, and Peter Wagner being likely to change during July.

Finally an apology to Mike Blatchford for not adding his point total correctly last week.

I hope to see you all next Thursday with Sun and reasonable wind.

Bob Marsh

Results: 1.Peter G, 2.Paul Varney, 3.David, 4.Fay, 5.Peter W, 6.Ann, 7.Brian, 8.Bob, 9.Mark, 10.Andy.

WS Racing Spring 2016 Race 9 chart

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