2009 Anniversary Series and Wednesday Evening Series Pages

Links to results and occasional reports on these series.

Latest results - Anniversary Series

Midsummer Special Results

Latest results - Wednesday Evening Series

About Personal Handicapping at IBRSC

Wednesday 1st July

Another easterly this week. Moderate, Force 2ish I guess and most certainly without such vicious gusts and characterised last week, but was it ever shifty... You could see lanes on the water, and gusts almost wandering about with no rhyme or reason. Boats close togther could be in quite different wind. A day to play the percentages and make moderate choices... Gorgeously warm of course - its been the warmest week of the year so far if you aren't reading this in southern England so don't know...Anyway we had a long course tonight, a sort of unwrapped Olympic with a long beat, a very broad reach, a beam reach across the reservoir, another pretty long beat and a run ack to the finish. Or at least that was the plan... With the wind swinging as it was life was never that simple...

The wind chose to give the slow fleet a very port end biased start. Gareth Griffiths and Tom Wilson were early to show - and indeed Tom kept close to Gareth for around half the race. The line was more normal for the Laser, and by the time the fast boats started it was in anything staboard end biased... Your editor thought he got the best start, but I tacked no more than 20 yards earlier than both the Curtis brothers in RSs various, and some 20 yards ahead and somehow that had tuned into some 200 yards behind by the time of the next tack as a different wind stream took them higher and faster... Mike Storey, who'd taken a port tack start and gone right, at times looked 100 yards ahead and then as much behind again as the wind swung one way and the other up the beat. This was the tale of much of the race for most of us to be quite honest. The winners of the first beat were undoubtedly the Curtis navigated RS300 and RS400, and they took a handy lead on the downwind section, follwed by Mike Storey, whilest the rest got something of a lull. Meanwhile Gareth in the Solos was seeing John Smith, followed by John Reay already very close on the tail radar, and yet from there they never seemed to get much closer...

As the wind swung for (and against) for different people there were some spectacular winners and losers Mike Curtis in the RS400 found that the runs tended to require little or no gybing, which put him in a considerable advantage, but on one lap Gareth Griffiths got a really tasty shift that pretty much got him to the windward mark without tacking, and in the end that was probably the defining moment (well minutes) of the race. Gareth won by about a minute of corrected time, with Mike Curtis second, Peter C third and John Reay (Laser) and Tom Wilson) Solo sharing the points for 4th on a handicap tie. Fiona and Rob Fardon (RS200) took 6th with a steady race. Tom Wilson's tied 4th place unsuprisingly gave him another race win in the Personal Handicap, with John Smith (Laser) 2nd, Fiona and Rob 3rd, Dave baldwin (Laser) 4th, Mike Storey (EPS) 5th and John Magrath 6th.

Series wise, well, it really is everything to play for. Mike Curtis is 1st, counting two wins and three seconds. Gareth Griffiths is 2nd with two winds, two seconds and a third, and Peter Curtis 3rd, also with two wins, two seconds and a third, and the duty evening average points separating them. As the average points include discarded races the odd down the pan result may become very significant indeed. Arthur Phillips, who might possibly be regretting having an evening playing with the foiling Moth (it wasn't really breezy enough) also has two wins, and is in 4th, with John Reay (one win) still in contention in 5th, in spite of having to count every race he's attended so far... The personal series is curretly led by Tom Wilson, with a possibly generous classification. John Smith isn't far behind, followed by Fiona and Rob and then Graham Potter. Alistair Smith (Topper) is currently counting a DNC and has dropped some way down the list but also has plenty of good results.

Wednesday 24th June

Good grief that was hard work! An easterly is never the greatest of wind directions at Island Barn, and this one was pretty gusty and shifty even before it was disturbed by the trees at the east end of the reservoir... Up around mark 2 - which was, you might say, not a universally approved choice as a windward mark - it was a real challenge just to get to the mark at times... The whole course was a long beat, a shortish reach (very short for flying a kite in my opinion, but that didn't stop those who had them getting in the required smart boat handling), a very short beat up the side of the reservoir in the gusts and shifts up to the above mentioned Mark 2, a long run and then a short reach to complete the lap.

Start sequences saw quite different line bias for each start due to the wind changing. Just to make things more exciting the hooter for the start sequence was misbehaving and not always sounding so it was necessary to pay attention to the flags!

There was plenty of drama and a fair bit of swimming going on... perhaps the most interesting leg of the race was the one that saw Messrs Reay and Pearson (Lasers) dicing down the run with Gareth Griffiths (Solo) who was on starboard... It all resolved itself at the mark with Kevin Pearson left capsized and mast the wrong side of the mark... John Smith got dumped out of his boat by a big shift that then left the boat upright and, but for the mainsheet round his foot, attempting to sail away... Much other action, bruises, and damp clothing...

Results.. John Reay, unsuprisingly perhaps in the conditions, won, but Gareth Griffiths was only 9 seconds behind on handicap, rueing the half a lap spent draining the Solo of water after a gust caught him unawares... Matt & Jo Stiles took third in the Club Feva, Graham Potter in the Albacore took 4th with a performance that seemed to involve rather less drama than most of our races, and Mike Storey 5th in the EPS. Series - well take a look... suffice to say its wide open, especially if John Reay can get a decent number of races in over the second half of the series. In the personal handicap Alistair Smith took another race in the Topper, with Tom Wilson 2nd and John Smith 3rd - and those are also the series top three...

Upcoming...

  • 5th July- 50th Anniversary Day - Grand pursuit race in the morning, free hog roast at lunchtime, fun day on the water games etc in the afternoon, and very likely the opportunity to do some boat swapping/try other craft for the adults. All very welcome, including Tuesday trysail participants and Wednesay evening members. Read more here.
  • 7th-12th July - Hampton Court Flower show - don't forget traffic will most likely be horrendous whilst that's on - allow extra time to get to the club if you're coming that way.

Anniversary Race Sunday 21st June

Rather light really. In fact very light at times. At my (late) rigging time there appeared to be an extraordinarily healthy number of Solos and Lasers rigging up at the west end of the pond, but almost no faster boats at all: Curtises and the like were all absent and only the Carl and Julie Mayhew's RS400 and my Canoe were represented of boats with three figure handicaps. I didn't get to see the fast boat start due to the aforementioned light winds, late rigging time and startline at the far side of the reservoir: I don't wish to embarrass myself further on the topic...

It was a strange sort of race really: there was an awful lot of waiting in calms and watching people catch up, then getting away again, and an awful lot of wind changes. The first beat in particular seemed enormously frustrating. The Mayhews took an early lead as you'd expect, but weren't really heading over the horizon in the way they often do: fickle winds and odd wind directions I guess were impeding them... Unusually the Solo fleet seemed to become split in half during the race, and the second half, together with the Stiles in a Feva and a couple of others got virtually becalmed on the last lap, finishing some six minutes behind the rest. Eddie Holland sportingly elected not to finish in order to have the bar open and ready for the rest of us which was greatly appreciated:-)

Results... Brian Greenway took the race in a Laser, with Gareth Griffiths some 20 corrected seconds behind in a Solo - a very good performance in what on the face of it were more Solo conditions. Arthur Phillips (Solo) was 3rd, Dave Bean (Laser) 4th, Mike Lipscombe (Solo) 5th and the Mayhew's 6th in the 400. With the personal handicaps Mr Greenway won again, two wins in one race seems good value! Second was very provisionally Topper 9066 (I don't know who was sailing it, and the personal handicap is subject to correction... Mark Timbs, Dave Bean and John Magrath took the next three places in Lasers, and Dave Strachan's Solo rounded out the top six.

Series wise Gareth Griffiths and Peter Curtis tie for the lead, with a first and a second each, Arthur Phillips and the Mayhews are close for the next two places, whilst Brian Greenway's win brings him into the top five. In the personal series the top three are unchanged, all getting discards of one form or another, but Mr Greenaway's other win brings him up to 4th in that series, with David Lawton up to 5th.

In other news I seem to have destroyed the much maligned club laptop with the aid of a pint of ginger beer shandy. Attempts at revival will start tomorrow, but I am not optimistic about its chances. If any of your employers would like to donate a redundant laptop to the club then feel welcome to make the offer: we don't need anything very sophisticated: just a species of windows (W98 is good enough), an ethernet interface and preferably a copy of MS Excel will fit the bill...

Wednesday 17th June

Intimidatingly windy as folks turned up at the club - white horses everywhere and regularly F6 on the anenometer. It dropped down a fair bit for rigging time, maybe calming a couple of slightly unsteady livers, but built a little at launching time. The race was I guess mostly F4, sometimes 5, some pretty big gusts but only moderately shifty.

Course wise we had beat, almost square run, short beat, and shyish reach back to the start. The shy reach was often a lot of fun...

Rather a disappointing turnout of Lasers tonight - normally the breeze is good for getting the Laser fleet out, but several of the usual suspects were missing... The fast start was firstly entertained by the unusual sight of Peter Curtis capsizing shortly before the gun, but to his opponents disappointment he managed to get in and sorted in time for a reasonable start. HAving a less reasonable start was your editor. I was planning to duck transoms and go for clear air on port, but the time I cleared the last transom I was looking good to ram the committee boat amidships. This didn't seem to be a good idea, so I had to take their transom too...

Amonsgt the slow fleet Gareth Griffiths (Solo) was very close to Graham Potter (Albacore) for a lot longer than Graham was altogether comfortable with. Mike Storey (EPS) was very well placed among the fast boats - indeed ahead of Peter Curtis (RS300) for several legs. Ken Duffel (Merlin), was well placed for a while, but they dropped back with spinnaker problems. With the way the wind was coming in bands it was one of those evenings where you could get lucky and fly down an offwind leg, or alternatively be unlucky and trundle down looking at spray flying on boats in front of or behind you...

There was in the end suprisingly little swimming in the race. although a few pretty close calls. Results wise Peter Curtis won, Mike Curtis was 2nd and Gareth Griffiths third . John Smith took his laser to 4th place with Mike Storey 5th in the EPS and Arthur Phillips (Solo) 6th. John Smith won the personal Handicap from Fiona and Rob Fardon with Mike Storey 3rd and Arthur Phillips 4th.

Wednesday 10th June

Overcast. Southerly, a lot of cumulus type cloud cover. It looked shifty to me... Actually it wasn't too bad in that respect, but it was never especially windy: solid F1 verging on F2 I guess. There was a rather light turnout: not sure if it was football - the arch at Wembley was very visibly lit up at dusk - tube strike, or maybe a bit of both. The Laser fleet seemed especially thin on the ground with much of the top end absent. Course wise Mike Curtis set a generous length, but not the easiest to describe - beat, reach across the top, run, shorter beat, broad reach back to the start. Well that was how it started anyway - the wind went round some and made the run pretty one sided by the end.

From the first start Graham Potter (Albacore) was predictably making good progress. Amongst the Solos the absence of Griffiths and Phillips gave Tom Wilson clearer air, which he took full advantage of, making very good progress early on. Meanwhile comedy at the fast handicap start was provided by your scribe. Slightly early for the start I thought, I'll just sink the stern of the Canoe a bit to slow down. Yep, you guessed it, I stepped off the boat with a certain amount of Bugs Bunny style arm waving as I lost my balance... With 30 seconds to the gun... So that was a good start donated to folk with little need of it... Early leaders from the fast fleet were predictably Peter Curtis (RS300) and Mike Storey (EPS), but also very much up there were new members Ken Duffell & Brian Corking in a bright red Merlin Rocket. Welcome guys...

Come 8 o'clock the wind looked very much as if it was giving up for the evening, and Mike wisely hoisted the S flag. Graham's Albacore was in the lead, but Tom Wilson was not far away at all. Also looking well placed were Peter Curtis and Ken Duffell. On handicap Tom Wilson won by a country mile, with Peter second, Graham 3rd and Ken 4th. John Magrath and John Smith grabbed 5th and 6th in Lasers. Tom also won the Personal handicap - I think we may be about to review his handicap band as he's been in the top three every race! Luke Martin took second place in a Club Enterpise - an excellent performance - John Smith 3rd, Malcolm Barnes (Solo) 4th, John Magrath 5th and Graham Potter 6th.

Series - well both the Scratch and Personal Handicaps look wide open. Mike Curtis leads from Peter Curtis, Gareth Griffiths and Arthur Phillips, all within two points of each other. Several others could very conceivably come into play if they can turn out more often: John Reay being an obvious candidate. Tom Wilson (handicap changes pending?) is currently leading the Personal Handicap from Alistair Smith, then John Smith and Malcolm Barnes, but its anyone's game yet...

Recent Championships Placings for IBRSC Sailors

  • Graduate - Graham Hughes/Bradley Hughes: 3rd
  • Feva XL - Peter Curtis/James Curtis: 8th
  • National 12 - Matt Stiles/Jo Stiles: 26th
  • National 12 - Mike Storey/Alex Storey: 30th

Wednesday 3rd June

Another overcast evening. When folk arrived the wind was showing all the signs of dropping off into something of a drifter but it never happened. Amateur weather forecasters confounded! In fact if anything it tended to build through the evening, at least until most folk had finished. I would guess that it was probably F2, maybe F3ish at times, roughly northerly and moderately shifty. Not especially warm, but you can't have everything: it was a good evening's racing and those of us who were't brave enough to go out in shorts and a T shirt were plenty warm enough!

There was a healthy turnout - nearly 30 boats on the water. In fact the race turnout was the best for at least five years, and the overall turnout for the first six races is also the best for at least five years, so things are on the up - come and join in:-)

Well, what do I remember seeing... A pretty hard fought start for the slow fleet. I remember being unable to pick out Graham Potter's Albacore from amongst the pack of Solos from where I was, so they must have been pretty tightly packed on the line... Gareth Griffiths, Arthur Phillips & Graham P were predictably among the early leaders. We were missing two of the top Laser sailors, including John Reay, just back from winning the Radial Masters event at Grafham, because they were running the racing, but there was still a good bunch. John Leheup and Rob Pettit were the early leaders, Rob somewhat hampered by an outhaul rigging problem. As an aside, why did the Laser class allow itself to be transformed from being one of the simplest boats of all to rig to being so amazingly complicated? I suppose at least know this expensive new kit is better than all those silly knots and loops... But I digress. There was a good selection of different boats out for the fast class start, and they were very considerably mixed all the way up the first beat with no especial regard for handicap order. Peter Curtis was I think the leader in his RS300, but Mike Storey's EPS and Mike Curtis' RS400 were thereabouts as well as I remember.

The course was quadrilateral, and with the decent breeze the reaches were somewhat shy for the spinnaker boats. The bottom one especially looked a struggle at times, and there were occasions when I saw folk holding on to the kite when I thought they might have been better to follow the gust down then head up two sailed... It was a delight on the Canoe though, especially when a good gust came through... The fast boats seemed to get up to the main pack of Lasers and Solos quite quickly, but the leaders seemed to have spread out quite considerably... Peter Curtis was leading fast boat for rather longer than his brother would have been comfortable with.

Results... on scratch Gareth Griffiths took the race in what I didn't think were especially Solo friendly conditions, so that was a good performance. Peter C was second, and John Leheup a very respectable third. Mike Storey's EPS was 4th, Mike Curtis 5th, and Arthur Phillips 6th. With the personal handicap Alistair Smith won by a good margin in his Topper, improving on second last week, from Tom Wilson, John Smith and Malcolm Barnes.

Wednesday 27th May

Overcast, windy, pretty gusty and shifty. Good though - a fun evening after a series starting with mostly quiet races. Those who, before the start, suggested Fiona's quadrilateral course was going to be over friendly to the spinnaker boats hadn't quite got the effect of wind strength dialled in - shyish reaches that would have been very comfortable in a F2 were definitely a struggle in what I guess was averaging F4. The single sail boats on the other hand were flying...

Incidents... your correspondent was managing plenty of his own, but noteworthy was the gust/shift on the first run that took out both the leaders in the Laser fleet, heard commenting afterwards that this running by the lee technique might have its disadvantages... I must say though, I have noticed that skill in that particular technique seems to be a good marker of the front of fleet competitors amongst our Laser Sailors... John Smith gratefully accepted the lead.

The most dramatic moment I was involved in was duelling with Mike Curtis' RS400, hurtling down the bottom reach on lap one without having pulled the sliding seat aft on the Canoe. The result was that the Canoe was seriously considering investigating the depth of the reservoir with her bow whenever I tried bearing away. All well and entertaining, but ahead of us, and just within three boat lengths of the mark was Alistair Smith in his Topper, glancing worriedly over his shoulder at the heavy metal coming up behind in clouds of spray... Mike decided (if I interpreted his shout correctly) that I didn't have water at the mark, leaving me wth the choice of attempting to go behind him, in which case the only way I could have avoided his rudder would have been if the rapidly submerging bow had passed beneath it, wiping out the Topper, whose 100% right of way was undisputable, or luffing up and missing the mark... I missed the mark, but not (to add injury upon injury) a capsize trying to retrieve the situation too hastily...

Meantimes Peter Curtis, freshly back from 8th at a Feva nationals cursed by light airs, was hurtling round in his RS300. Lets say that I don't wish to dwell on his on the water position in relation to those of us with faster boats. Graham Potter (Albacore) and of course Gareth Griffiths (Solo) wwere looking pretty good from the first start.

And results? Well Peter won by a margin with the standard handicaps. A damp John Reay was second with his Laser, Gareth 3rd in the Solo, Graham 4th with the Albacore, and Mike Curtis 5th in his RS400. Looks as if the handicaps worked then. Peter Halliday, who's suffered quite a selection of glitches so far, was 6th in his Solo. In the personal handicap John Smith (who was second Laser in scratch results) won by just three corrected seconds from Alistair Smith's Topper, with Graham Potter 3rd and Peter Halliday 4th.

Wednesday 20th May

A nice sunny evening... Summer evening? maybe not, but spring anyway. A pleasant breeze force 2ish, warm, and not too shifty on the whole, so a very pleasant evening...

Plenty of pin end bias at the start line, so most were picking the port end. In the Laser start Evean Cairns got the best start, ducking back across the startline at the right moment. There was an especial pile up for the fast start when an unexpected gust brought the starboard end guys along the line quickly when the port enders figured they were going to have room to cross... Much crash tacking ensued... Mike Storey was seen disappearing into the distance whilst most of the rest of us disentangled themselves.

Graham Potter (Albacore) led all the way round in the Albacore, Arthur Phillips chased by Tom Wilson led in the Solos, but had a fairly straightforward race. After his flash start Evan Cairns managed the starring move of the evening, succeeding in capsizing in the midst of quite a bunch at the gybe mark, and then spending more time than he might have liked sorting himself out. John Leheup was seen covering Mike Curtis (in a Laser this eveninng) when he got ahead, and held on nicely for first Laser.

There was more place changing in the fast fleet than there ought to have been - Peter Curtis especially was a very hard act for the "faster" boats to get past after he came out of the start line punchup pretty well...

Arthur Phillips took the win on Handicap with Tom Wilson second, Graham Potter third and John Leheup 4th. Michael Curtis (in a Laser remember) was 5th, and Fiona and Rob Fardon first of the fast handicap fleet in an RS200

Anniversary Race Sunday 17th May

This is a customer service announcement on behalf of the Laser fleet... Please note that full rig Lasers start the Anniversary race on the first start under the H flag with the fast handicap boats...

It was pretty horrible at rigging time - a good Force 6 with loads of rain. A significant percentage of those present decided discretion was the part of getting wet, cold and uncomfortable. Fate, Murphy, or whoever/whatever naturally then decided that the rain and wind should abate some for the race - we even saw some sun at times... I wouldn't want to give you the impression that it was anything other than very breezy though.

As suggested above the fast fleet set off without the majority of the full rig Lasers. Carl and Julie Mayhew took an early lead, but with Peter Curtis in rather closer attendance than they might have liked. The wind went round a fair bit for the start sequence, giving considerable port end bias for the start sequences, but that was nothing compared to the race, where what was a spinnaker reach on lap one had turned into a reasonable beat by laps 4/5, whilst the original beat was more of a reach...

Gareth Griffiths took an early lead amongst the Solos, mixing it with the (late starting) Lasers much of the time. To be quite honest the race is something of a blur for most participants, with much wind and speed interspersed with a certain amount of swimming... Most notable, perhaps, was Andrew Ford's last leg in his Solo, which he hurtled down at considerable speed, very nearly managing to pip Arthur Phillips, who had thought he was well clear, for second Solo.

Results wise Gareth G, who was flying upwind, won the race by an astonishing four minutes on handicap. Peter Curtis was second, Carl Mayhew third, Arthur Phillips 4th, by one second from Andrew Ford, and David Simpson 5th, sporting a Radial rig.

With two races in the series gone we can think about overall results... Without discards the top places all go to those who fished both races of course... Peter Curtis (RS300) leads, with Arthur Phillips (Solo) 2nd, Tony Butler (Laser) 3rd, and James and Harry Curtis (Feva) 4th. And with the Personal Handicaps Tony Butler is in first place on tie break from James and Harry Curtis, Malcolm Barnes (Solo) 3rd and David Clark (Solo) 4th.

Wednesday 13th May

Overcast, in fact dank and dreary and threatening to drizzle...

A lightish easterly wind, very patchy, but maybe not quite as shifty as most easterlies. Extremely patchy at times if fact... A generous amount of bias on the pin end saw most folk selecting that as the place to be. Especially selecting the pin very precisely were the Laser fleet. Rather more selected that point than there were room for in fact, which resulted in considerable animation, two guns and some hasty returns... Your correspondent was well placed to see the pin end, and in my opinion **** ****** who was at the pin should consider himself very lucky not to have been greeted with silence at the finish... Still if they didn't see you over it doesn't count!

It was something of a bijou coursette - a shortish beat, broad reach come run and a triangle - so something of a distorted Olympic as the two beats were on separate marks. Consequently picking the shifts right was key, and geting the right patch of wind on the downwind legs - which there was rather less choice about - was also important.

Amongst the fast boats Mike Curtis took an early and good lead, Arthur Phillips looked good amongst the Solos - in fact most of the Solos looked good - whilst the Kevin Pearson came through the Lasers well after returning at the start.

In the end it was something of a Solo night - Arthur Phillips first, Peter Cottrell 3rd, Mervyn Cinnamond 4th. Mike Curtis took second, and Kevin Pearson was 5th. It was good to see John Reay back at the club, although as he was the other Laser pushed over the line he may not have been that convinced about the warmth of his welcome...

Wednesday 6th May

Overcast, but a pretty decent breeze and no rain. We set a 'd' course - beat, short run, broad reach, shy reach, but a tendency for the wind to swing south between clouds tended to make the last reach rather less shy than we had intended. We set a moderate amount of port bias on the line, but for the sequence there was the aforementioned swing to the south, so it was definitely enough bias for most everyone to pick the pin end. This was particularly the case for the Solo start, where Arthur Phillips, intending a port tack start, found himself having to take rather more transoms than he would have wished...

The Lasers, on the other hand, all picked starboard tack at the port end, resulting in a very tight bunch at the pin and also a lot of agonising on when to risk the tack onto port, which was preferred... It looked like fun from where we were standing...

Early shows were Gareth Griffiths amongst the Solos, and Kevin Pearson very definitely taking the lead in the Laser fleet - indeed into the Solos rather earlier than they would have liked... Mike Curtis was looking well placed early on in the fast handicap fleet, a status considerably enhanced when the wind went just right for them to storm up the shy reach with all 3 sails fully operational...

Mike C was doing well all through the race, but Kevin Pearson was looking very well placed in the Laser until last lap, when a combination of a good gust and shift for Mike and both bad luck with gusts and a mainsheet round the boom cost Kevin dearly.

On handicap Michael Curtis took a safe first in the 400, with Kevin Pearson 2nd in the Laser. Peter Curtis took third in his RS300, Gareth Griffiths 4th in his Solo with Evan Cairns and Rob Pettit 5th and 6th respectively in Lasers - so all the starts and classes pretty well mixed up.

When the personal handicap sums were done it transpired that Mike had won under both systems, albeit tied with Malcolm Barnes (Solo) for first, with Tom Wilson (Solo) 3rd, John Smith (Laser) 4th and Paul Armitage (RS400) 5th.

Wednesday 29th April

We had 19 entries, including 4 who've joined using the new Wednesday only membership, plus Graham Hughes, Matt Stiles, Gareth Griffiths, etc. - good quality fleet. The wind was pretty good as we set the course. However as for the race, the wind went light as the slow handicap started and then picked up again after the fast handicap started, so it rather gave the race to Mike in the 400, particularly as he finished first on the water as the wind was dropping off. He was followed by Gareth. The big surprise was Matt Stiles in a Club Laser, 3rd overall.

Peter Curtis

Anniversary Race Sunday 19th April

Well, first running of a race using the new personal handicap system. No-one's actually shot me yet, but maybe that's because as I write I'm the only person who's seen the results.

Well, if nothing else it was a glorious day for sailing. A healthy turn out of boats, particularly amongst the Solos, and some very close racing in sunshine and a nice breeze. Spring has come. A northerly breeze, quite variable in strength and direction. I can't do much of a report on this race as I cunningly missed the start so didn't see very much.

Take a look at the results above, and see how you think the handicapping is working. The boats were close today - there were a lot of gusts tending to consolidate the fleets on the downwind legs, and consequently sailors in the higher bands were generally favoured.