Sunday 20th May 2007

Glorious sunshine and force 1 to 2 westerly winds (with some north from time to time).

Sunday was the D K Wright Trophy races for sailing dinghies postponed form the 15th April when strong winds had made sailing impossible. The races also count towards the Spring Series Trophy.

The participants are seen here on the first lap of the first race struggling to get round mark A. Incidentally I wasn’t the only ‘snapper’ there was a party of photographers from the university on a weekend course looking for subjects to shoot.

The D K Wright trophies were raced for over two races. The course was the same for the two races: Open line start – B to starboard, BP (Basil Point) to starboard, A to port, 18 to starboard, Red Buoy (Salty Fiddler) outside the OOD box to starboard – three laps.

The wind, although apparently strong enough to sail, proved hardly sufficient to stem the tide. Ivan in his Wayfarer - 8856, the one with the Fireball sail, was battling the tide opposite the dock when the starting gun fired – actually it was the hooter but it sounds better, a gun that is. Giles, Blaze – 618, got off to a good start and was approaching Basil Point whilst the others were struggling to reach B, the first mark. Sadly, for Giles, he missed the Mark and eventually he was only the third to round it, the tide being at its strongest and the wind its weakest round the furthest point of the course. The first lap took all of 40 minutes but as the tide eased we were able to complete another lap before the course was shortened to two laps. The big surprise was that Ivan having had such a disastrous start won the race! Giles only came second after his great start.

For the second race it was decided to keep the same course for ease of identification, for the sailors, but of course because the tide was now ebbing it was in effect a completely different set of conditions. This time we managed to get three laps in, see times below, Giles winning the second race comfortably and winning the trophy overall by virtue of his performance in the last race, he and Ivan were equal on points after the two races.

Giles

Ivan won the ‘Crewed’ boat trophy.

It must be pointed out that the courses and conditions do not favour the Dart 15 type of sailing dinghy and Frank’s performances are much better than his times and positions show.

Results:

Spring Series Points & Positions after 8 races (Best 55% of races to count – so far 5. Less than 5 races don’t qualify):

Alison and Family were out in their Dabber as were Nick Johnstone and Bryan Sadler in their Mirrors. John & Sonny Rushton sailed up to Snatchem’s in their boats, an Enterprise and a small single-hander.

Michael Swarbrick