Pretty much flat calm at arrival time, but the wind filled in for a reasonable if somewhat uinstead and shifty evening's sailing. The shifts rather spoilt the planned course, but with Sunset at 20:13 a restart and course adjustment really wasn't a practical option. The beat was still a beat, if very one sided on the last lap, but what can you do? No point in having a 20 minute postponement and a 15 minute race...
Graham Potter's Albacore made best advantage of the clear air from the first to get away, but Nick Lowe's RS700 was an early show in the fast fleet, particularly noticeable on the shy reach, fully powered up when most others were struggling for speed. Unfortunately a snapped trapeze wire with the often consequent broken tiller extension ended his race. Even more unhappily it didn't end his troubles for the evening - his boat became detached on the ramp down and slid down the concrete with disastrous effect on the gel coat, and then to cap an evening he'd rather forget someone pinched his pie and chips...
The RS400s were making excellent progress in what were pretty good conditions for them, and finished 1st, 3rd and 4th, with Graham Potter's Albacore separating them. Mike Lipscombe's Solo rounded out the top 5. The evening was also enlivened by one of the Club's rare protest hearings. This one however was rejected on the grounds of no hail of protest. Remember the hail must be "protest" - "720" or "do your turns" doesn't count, and the hail must be immediate - there is case law that suggests that 10 seconds may be too long a delay.
A nice sunny evening, and a reasonable F2 breeze. Your correspondant admits to getting the course slightly wrong, as a lack of space and the desire not to have you guys racing in the shelter of the windward bank meant that the desired "Too shy for spinnakers" reach wasn't. However with boats from each start in the top 5 I guess it couldn't have been too far out, and it was definitely RS400 weather...
Anyway from the start Graham Potter took an early lead from the slow fleet, and Rob Sumner soon got away from an uncharacteristically thin Laser pack and was up with the Solos halfway through his first lap. The fast start was the best populated, and at one stage it looked as if there was going to be considerable pushing and shoving, but in the event they got away smoothly. Predictably it was the 400s who showed best amongst the fast boats, with Laser 4000 and 29er particularly suffering from the light breeze. Carl and Julie Mayhew were especially making good progress.
By lap three - the final lap - things were definitely getting trickier. Whilst you couldn't say that the breeze was dying, and the good bits were still good, there were plenty of holes to entrap the unwary or unlucky. The lead boats came to the last run pretty much together, Carl Mayhew leading Mike Curtis among the 400s. The run looked tricky though, and there was no obvious good path to the mark. Carl went laft, and probably got more wind, and Mike went down the middle, and got better shifts. Tricky. In the end Carl got a gust right at the bottom which enabled him to force Mike to gybe back, which gave him a lead which he kept along the bottom reachj to the finish. These two took first and second on handicap, with Rob Sumner's Laser third, Stuart Costigan 4th in another 400 and Graham Potter, who had particularly suffered on the last run, 5th. 6th was Mervyn Cinnamond's Solo.
Hot sunshine and a nice F3 for rigging time. Unfortunately this dinmished to F1sh for the race, until the shorten course was hoisted, at which point it piped up sufficiently that another lap would have been feasible. Oh well, that's Summer evening sailing...
At the slow start Graham Potters Alabacore made its usual brisk departure, but the lighter conditions suited the Solos better, and, especially on the downhill legs, he wasn't seeing the sort of clear space he might have liked between him and them, and especially Messrs Cotterell and Cinnamond. Amongst the Lasers Rob Sumner made an early break, whilst at the fast fleet start the inevitable Carl Mayhew was beuing chased very hard by "The Return of Mark Edmondson, Co-Starring Rob Cage"!
With the lighter than expected weather the RS400s could fly a kite down all three downwind legs, so inevitably they did well on handicap, with Carl and Julie taking their third win in succession and Edmonson and Cage keeping them honest and taking second place. Third and fourth went to Cotterell and Cinnamond respectively, and Rob Sumner was fifth. There was a dead heat on gandicap for 6th between Peter Curtis RS300 and Mike Lipscombe's Solo.
I think we're going to have to find a way to set some less RS400 friendly courses for these lighter wind evenings: they do shine in those conditions. They're very good here, but when racing against them at the big open events in my Cherub a couple of years back they were never a threat at all: its the restricted racing area that suits them.
That blew the cobwebs out - the orb web spider (Arachnid, not computer system!) in the clubhouse looked most dischuffed. At rigging time the anemometer was reading 3/4, but once I was pulling the sails up the big gusts coming through felt a lot more than that... more downhaul: more downhaul! Felt very serious as I headed for the start with one or two boats testing out how warm the water has got so far...
The course for the day was much less spinnaker boat friendly than the last couple of weeks - beat/very shy reach, run with a kink, shy reach. With Carl Mayhew in his 600 Stuart Costigan took the front of the 400 fleet, but Carl came through after a first lap swim and Peter Curtis 200 looked very close too. Rob Sumner had taken a lot of space out of the rest of the Laser fleet too and was also looking good.
WIth the clouds threatening rain the race was cut short in the gathering gloom - disappointing to those who were revelling in the breeze, less of a worry for those like your author who were wilting a bit...
When the sums were done Peter Curtis had done enough to fight off Rob Sumner for first, Stuart Costigan took third, Carl Mayhew 4th and Mike Curtis 5th in another 400. The rain came down at this point, and all retired to the clubhouse with some relief for beer and chips...
Blowing old boots off most of the day, scattered showers, blowing old boots most of the night... There were only 45 minutes of the day which had light wind, and that combined with continuous rain, and that was the 45 minutes we raced in. Sniff. To make matters worse the wind swung rather more than was forecast as it lightened, and made the race somewhat one sided.
Anyway, with tell tales stuck firmly to the jib by the rain the race ensued. Mike Curtis was first across the finish line after some place changing with Stuart Costigan, very closely followed by Carl Mayhew, who was sailing his 600. A tight group followed, consisting of Stuart's 400, Peter Curtis' 300 and Rob Sumner's Laser, with Rob a good minute and a half clear of the next Laser. When the handicapper had done the sums these all featured, but Peter's 300 took the race by all of 5 seconds corrected from Mike's 400. Rob was 3rd and Carl 4th. The leading 4 were all within a minute on corrected time. Stuart took 5th place.
As soon as the majority finished the wind filled in very decently to some voiced frustration from the anemophiliac, some of whom delayed the rush for hot showers, dry clothes and fish and chips in favour of a quick blast across the reservoir...
Light winds again... very light at times. And I'd been watching the trees bending outside the office window most of the day too.
In fact there was a decent enough breeze when we launched, right through to the slow handicap start and beyond. The Solos especially got away well and were making good progress round the track. The Lasers were in unusually polite mood on the start line, with "after you" being the word of the evening and only John Reay actually being at the line for the start!
So then it was the fast handicap start and the wind dropped some. Quite a bit really. The slow start boats were by and large off down the reach when the wind dropped, but the Lasers were still going upwind and lost out, as did the fast start boats. In light airs at the windward mark all the fast boats arrived pretty much together, with Peter Curtis ending up at the back of the queue out after attempting what turned out to be a "not quite big enough gap" to tack in when the oncoming starboard boat objected to having to luff round him before the tack had quite completed...
With no real sign of much wind coming back, and every chance of the wind dying completely the race committee opted to shorten aggressively, and it was barely a 40 minute race for most. The wind dropped again at the end and caught the Laser fleet very badly again: it was not their night for wind changes.
When the sums were done there was a Solo 1,2,3, Mike Lipscombe, Mervyn Cinnamond and Peter Cotterell, with Denis Chown's RS300 taking 4th and Stuart Costigan's RS400 5th. Meanwhile the wind dropped more or less completely, becalming the last few boats who had a very tedious last couple of legs to the finish, justifying the early finish for the rest.
At least that's how it seemed to the rest of us after a very variable evenings sailing... When we arrived there was a very desultory northerly breeze, or at least vague tendency for the air to drift southwards, so all progressed to the south side of the pond. This was the cue for the wind to get up to approaching F3 and clock round to the west, changing all the time. With the wind circling like a vulture that's spotted a sick antelope the duty team did the only rational thing in the circumstances, which was to set a square course in the middle of the reservoir and hope that one or another leg would be a beat for most folk on most laps...
As it transpired the Solos, Graham's Albacore and others of the slow start had a broad reach start in a decent breeze and headed for the next mark at speed. They were most of the way there two minutes later when the Lasers started. Now the Lasers had a close reach to the mark in somewhat less wind. For the fast start it was a fetch to the first mark and even lighter...
The race proceeded in much the same way - patchy. Graham Potter took full advantage of his early start and boat speed over the others of his start, hit the shifts, found the wind, sailed a definitive race and was seven minutes clear of any other boat at the finish. He was doing it right then... The fast boats caught up to the Lasers early, but then struggled with some very light runs, and the Lasers kept well in touch. Solos too took advantage of the wind and kept ahead of the rest for much of the race.
The sums hardly needed to be done for Graham's first place, but behind him Mervyn Cinnamond and Mike Lipscombe took the next two places in Solos, with Peter Curtis and Denis Chown 4th and 5th in RS300s.
This was very much a "why we do it" night - an interesting course, very close racing with much place changing, a decent breeze, shifting but not really fluky, it had it all really.
The first start to be noteworthy was the Laser one - a totally even start between the front 4 after considerable jockeying for position saw Messrs John Reay, Rob Sumner, Sam Eversfield and Ben Palmer absolutely level starting up the first beat. This situation was pretty much to continue, although Ben Palmer dropped back suffering lack of weight as the breeze built. The fast start was also pretty tight with Nick Lowe's 700 predictably taking an early lead, and the 400s of Stuart Costigan and Mike Curtis swapping places up the beat.
The next leg was a broadish reach along the windward bank, with eddies over the top providing particular opportunities to lose or gain, then there was a run down to the bottom, a short second beat and what has to be my favourite leg when sailing an asymettric boat, the "should we/shouldn't we" shy reach. While not evryone's cup of tea I find the tactical variations and subtle judgements of such legs most interesting, requiring the sailors to make fine calculations as to whether the kite will pay or not, and whether one should try going high and hoisting late, or low and dropping early to two sail up to the mark, all these variations. Anyway, Stuart got it most right on lap one, Mike on lap two and Carl Mayhew on lap three as I remember...
By lap three the late starting Mayhews had caught up with the battle between Stuart and Mike, adding considerable tactical complexity and much place swapping. This coincided with the three of them catching up with Rob, John and Sam's Lasers, who were having an equally complex and enthralling tactical battle at the front of their fleet, and all six were tangled up for the next two legs, with the Lasers sailing a particularly effective run to keep in with the asymettric battle as the 400s jockied for air and angle down the run.
The 400s had just drawn clear of the Lasers by the finish gun, and finished in close succession in the form book order of Mayhew, Curtis, Costigan, although it had not been like that most of the race! Rob Sumner finished soon afterwards to lead the Lasers - rather too soon thought the 400s - and Sam Eversfield just managed to get a nose ahead of John Reay to take the second place among the Lasers.
On handicap the Lasers indeed tok a 1,2,3, with Denis Chown slipping into 4th place and the RS400s 5,6,7th.
Well the series is at the halfway point now, and things are getting very interesting...
Last night was definitely one for the anemopholiacs - with the wind up at 3/4 with regular bands up to F5 and more there was enough for everyone and too much for your correspondent, who feels he needs more time with the Canoe before taking that much breeze on. The track for the night was based on a square, except that after the run there was a shy reach up to mark partway up the course and a bearaway onto a run back to the start. That might not have been a kind choice in the circumstances - more later!
From the start there was a battle royal going on at the front of the Laser fleet, with much place changing between Sam Eversfield (fresh from his hot result at the Laser Club Champs) and Rob Sumner. I particularly remember enjoying watching a dramatic couple of legs up the shy reach, through the bearaway and down the run in one of the strongest passages of wind with both of them just feet apart.
Meantimes another equally intense match was occurring between Messrs Curtis M. and Costigan (again) who were having just as tight a match as the previous week. This time it was the reach at the top of the square that was should we/shouldn't we hoist leg, with the big gusts a particular challenge to the decision making...
All round the race there was drama and the occasional swim, not least for (and I won't mention names!) the Enterprise where one of our experienced sailors was introducing her husband to the delights of heavy weather sailing, and, it turned out, capsizing and even the sensation of having your boat comprehensively fill with water with a buoyancy tank leak! This last turned into a particularly comic episode when the assisting safety boat, having cut the engine while folk were in the water, had the starter cord break, leaving them engineless! Fortunately it was near the end of the race, so the crews of both Enterprise and safety boat drifted slowly to the bank and tidied up while the other safety boat finished the race before collecting them...
Also having a spectacular swim was an RS600 whose helm is particularly well placed in the series. As all sailors of quicker boats have experienced, and those who read the mags will have read, going upwind is fine, going downwind is fine, but the transition in between can be problematic. In a big wind one needs space in order to manage the transition. Space was exactly what, at the bearaway from the shy reach to the run, one did not have due to the proximity of jetties. Anyway, this time there is a particularly big gust, and our hero has nursed his boat onto the reach and is bearing away further when, almost in front of him, is the last jetty. Yes, there's room to squeeze the boat through. And no, there's not room to squeeze a trapezing helm through... Boat was sent through while the helm baled out over the transom!
As for results, well the Laser duo were first and second, Sam just pipping Rob, and the 400 duo third and 4th, with Mike taking the third place. Fifth was Peter Curtis' RS300. Series wise Rob Sumner has almost caught Carl Mayhew, being just 0.7 points behind him, and the Curtis brothers in their respective boats are only a few points behind that, so its anyone's game yet, and this looks like being a particularly hard fought series.
Despite there being zero wind for most of the afternoon by the time I got to the club there was a rather pleasant 5 knots or so coming from the South East. The race team set a quadrilateral course with a long beat and run and two rather shorter reaches.
The wind rather predictably dipped a bit and shifted during the start sequence. The line became port biased enough for Mervyn Cinnamond to cross the Solos on port (just) and lead away up the beat. Two minutes later the Lasers reminded us why it is preferable for the committee boat to be at the starboard end of the line, as it looked like they were going to be holed by three of them, line abreast, who were a little early for the gun. In the end John Smith had to peel away behind the boat and started last. The fast fleet also got a little close to the port end, although without quite so much fuss as the Lasers. They seemed to get the better of the wind and were catching the slowest Lasers at the top mark, which saw Peter Curtis lead the three RS400\'s in his RS300.
The average windspeed continued to ease gradually as the race progressed, which slowed everyone except Carl and Julie Mayhew in the RS400. They seemed to keep going faster and faster and pulled out a huge lead.
As the wind got lighter so the differnce in boat speed between the RS300s, Lasers and Solos diminished. Peter Cottrell in a Solo overtook the two leading Lasers on one run and Peter Curtis took the whole beat to make up 20 yards on Mike Lipscombe, who was leading the Solos.
In the Lasers John Smith made up for his start by getting up to 3rd in fleet, until the last lap when it all fell apart, while John Leheup, who had been seen doing a 720 took a wild gamble out left on the last beat and came in with wind to overtake Dicken and Sam, who had been contesting first Laser all race up to that point.
Overall, Carl came first, Mike Lipscombe second, Mike Curtis third in an RS400, Merv and Peter Cottrell fourth and fifth and Peter Curtis sixth.
Thanks to Peter Curtis for the report.
A hot and humid day, and you'd have thought thunderstorms ought to be about. No sign of them however, but there was a very decent breeze blowing at rigging time. Most promising. A somewhat minimal duty team set a course of beat, broad reach, run, shy reach right across the lake, broad reach back to the start. At least that was planned, but the wind went round some and the shy reach often approximated a fetch and the reaches in the other direction went very broad indeed. It was still a reasonable beat though, so no complaints here - in fact it was a nice interesting course.
The slow fleet set off somewhat depleted, with at least one crew stuck in the flower show traffic and a helm disconsolately waiting on the bank. The Lasers also looked light numbers wise, with several of those one expects near the front absent, notably Rob Sumner, who's the top Laser sailor in the series at the moment. The fast fleet was however present in strength, both in numbers and rather vocally on the start line... In particular there seemed to be some dispute about room on the line.
Anyway as the race progressed Nick Lowe's RS700 was obviously making very good progress in conditions that seemed to suit it. A good old battle was going on behind between Carl Mayhew and Stuart Costigan's 400s. Peter Curtis had got well clear of his main competitors in the quicker singlehanders, whilst Mike Lipscombe and Pater Cotterell's Solos were looking far too much in the middle of the Laser fleet for the Laser sailors comfort!
A full 90 minute race was sailed, with the wind varying some and never being quite as brisk as it had promised earlier in the evening. Something of a last lap lull affected the Lasers and Solos partiularly, and in the end Peter Curtis took the race by a whole two corrected seconds from Carl Mayhew's RS400. Nick Lowe took 3rd - an excellent performance in the 700, with Stuart Costigan 4th. 5th and 6th went to Messrs Lipscombe and Cotterell respectively in Solos.
Series wise the second place gives Carl and Julie a distinct advantage over the absent Rob Sumner, while Peter's third win of the series means that he is by no means out of it. A lot is going to depend on Julie's availability, since it is quite clear that Carl and Julie and RS400 is a rather more potent combination than Carl alone in an RS600...
A quiet week with both leading contenders absent and generally a low turnout. The holidays must be kicking in... A nice evening for sailing though with a quite bearable and not especially shifty breeze. Good then.
Unfortunately the club phone line is playing up again and I couldn't post results to the website, which in turn means that I lose my main prompt for writying reports... What do I remember? A couple of incidents where seemingly half the boats on the water were overlapped on mark roundings. Nick Lowe making another clean getaway in his RS700. I note he's running up the Open meeting results: I bet sailing it at Island Barn is really sharpening up the boat handling - 29er sailors please note! Results wise Stuart Costigan won, and I think Nick Lowe was third in the 700 . I forget who second was, maybe Graham Potter's Albacore. There was a Solo and a Laser pretty adjacent though. Peter Curtis failed to take advanatage of h is rivals absence and recorded an immediately discarded 5th, By contrast Stuart's win took him up to 5th overall, and in striking distance of the minor placings, just 2 points behind Mike Curtis, who's 4th overall. The Top three remains unchanged position wise with everyone gaining a discard...
In more ways than one! At the end of the hottest July day on record heading to the sailing club was not a difficult thing to motivate myself for! We had a decent breeze too. The F5 on arrival seemed rather too good to last, and indeed did drop some for race time, but there was plenty for a super sail. There are only three races left in the series after this one, and its really starting to matter...
Series leaders the Mayhews were running this one with Andy Howard, and set what I suppose you could call a d course, lower case D that is, of beat, short run, reach, short run, reach back to the start. It didn't work out like that though, the wind went round - the opposite way to everyone's prediction! They set a very long line as well, which meant there were plenty of options at the start. Graham Potter set off first, all alone with the Solos absent. The Lasers followed, and there was a lot of variation on whether to take left, right or the middle of the line. As they crossed right was just ahead of left, but middle well back! Strange... By the fast start the wind had gone left some, and left was the end of the line to be. All charged to the left... Peter, right at the left end, thought he had room to tack onto port and clear the approaching cavalry. Was he right? Or left in trouble? From my position at the front of Stuart's boat this looked more like Emily Davison's manouver at the 1913 Epsom Derby than anything else, but Stuart was in an uncharacteristically mellow mood and simply crash tacked underneath with not even a shout for turns... Mike Curtis meanwhile ducked and took a longer hitch to the left befoe tacking close to the layline. This was the right call, getting a better wind angle to the mark and leading there. The run down turned out to be a reach, and the first reach out a fetch. Again. We seem to be doing a lot of those. The second run was indeed a run, and in a tricky part of the weather. Stuarts left trumped Mike's right and put Stuart back in the lead of the fast boats. Meanwhile Graham was continuing his lonely way, and a battle royal was developing at the front of the Laser Class, with three age groups represented, young pretender Sam Eversfield, Master John Reay, and Rob Sumner in between. There was, I'm afraid, no way I could keep track of place changes amongst these, but it was tight and intense...
By the last lap the fast boats were coming very concerned that they were not catching the Lasers as fast as would be liked. They were, however, catching each other, with Mike Curtis sailing a better first run on that lap to put himself in position at the mark rounding to get a nose in front and to leeward of Stuart so that his upwash did the rest on the fetch. The 400s did get through the Laser battle on this lap, but they had hardly cleared the finish as three hoots went in very close succession for Eversfield, Sumner, Reay in that order. When the sums were done it was a Laser benefit, The top three were followed by John Leheup in 4th and John Magrath 6th, with only Graham Potter's 5th breaking the Laser monopoly.
So where does this leave the series? Well, Carls average points for OOD was the best score in the fast fleet! Rob Sumner's seond puts him jusr 3.2 points behind, but Rob is at the Laser masters next week (he's just qualified as an "Apprentice" and Carl is also required elsewhere.on at least one week, so its going to be interesting. On the quiet there are one or two others you can't write off either. With 8 races to count from 16 three good races will make a lot of difference to many scores, and I reckon there are at least 9 people who still have a mathematical chance of winning. Not the least of thse is Eversfield junior. notching up his second win and climbing up the results now he has enough finishes.
Loads of wind at rigging time - unexpectedly. On reflection I think it was probably due to some large cumulo-nimbus bubbling about around the place. They were lightning free for the duration of the race anyway... The plentiful supply of wind caused some of the Solo fleet to decide that discretion was the better part of valour. The Lasers were also well down on numbers, holidays and championships perhaps?
Anyway a somewhat depeleted fleet set out in a very decent breeze which dissipated towards the end of the first lap to the disgust of both those with more anemophiliac boats, who saw early good placings reduce rapidly, and also to the Solos on shore who saw an opportunity missed. To continue the theme of recent weeks the wind also shifted round to ensure that there was a fetch in the course!
The diminishing breeze,.perhaps predictably, gave Carl and Julie Mayhew no troubles at all, and they sailed a very smooth and steady race to take a 5th win in the series. Its not enough to make the series secure, but its quite a step towards it. I think that, combined with Peter Curtis' second place, means that only Rob Sumner can now catch Carl & Julie. but don't take my word for it, do the sums yourself! Rob was absent, and Mike Curtis was running the race, Mike being the other main contender. Third place went to John Leheup, bizarrely the only Laser out, and 4th and 5th to Mike Jones and Peter Halliday in Solos.
Another windy evening. I don't think this has been a bad Wednesday series for breeze, but I haven't checked up on the reports below to see if its true. Arrival time it was varying between F3 and F5, but I'm not sure it wasn't windier at times during the race.
Holiday time has kicked in now, and several of the leading contenders were absent, Studland or elsewhere. In fact I believe that the series winner was decided when Rob Sumner was unable to race tonight... Of the top ten before the race I think only Carl (and Julie) Mayhew and Sam Eversfield started . Due to the wind strength my observations of what was going on were severely limited. Sorry.
Anyway first away were Jones and Halliday in Solos, for what was to be pretty much a private match race for the evening. They were speedily caught by a much more numerous Laser fleet than last week, featuring Sam Eversfield in the lead, being chased hard by Dickon Maclean and the others. This week the fast fleet was most depleted. Carl and Julie took an early lead, being chased intermittently by your editor's Canoe, in which my attempts to keep them honest chasing them with a faster boat were severely hampered by taking what felt like an average of five minutes to complete each tack!
I remember seeing various boats horizontal on the track - I remember nearly falling over myself trying to avoid one... I remember seeing the Solo match race heading towards me on starboard as I approached the windward mark a bit above the lay line and hoping that they would tack before I had to try and work out a way to miss them... They did. I'm trying to forget most of my tacks and one gybe!
Carl and Julie sailed steadily to take another win on handicap. Sam versfield took second, with Dickon 3rd, Simon Bean 4th, Fiona Jubb 5th in her radial, and Mike Jones winning the Solo match race for 6th place.
So overall I think Carl is uncatchable for the series. If Peter Curtis were to win next week, and Rob Sumner lower than fifth then I think Peter can just pip Rob for second. Peter's current third place is potentially vulnerable to both Mike Curtis and also Sam Eversfield, who's now up to 5th, but must sail next week to maintain a top 10 position. But these are just my estimates, do your own to be sure.
The Wednesday series finished with another very pleasant evening's sailing in the F2 ish sort of area. We didn't have a booked duty team, so Graham Potter (and Heather), Stuart Costigan and Peter Cotterell very sportingly stepped up to run things, particularly as all three could well have improved top ten placings into top five placings with a good result. It also would have been Stuart's last race at Island Barn with his house move next week.
Rob Sumner was away. so Peter Curtis, Mike Curtis (tonight in a Laser) and Sam Eversfield were competing for the minor podium slots in the series, with Peter needing a win or a second for second place as Rob was absent. Sam needed to win and have Peter to be 5th or worse to get third place, as did Mike.
Well, lightish winds and no 400s out. That looked pretty good for Peter, and he took an early lead in the fast fleet. Meanwhile things were very active in the Laser fleet, with Sam, Mike (who as the Laser winter series winner is at least as good in a Laser as a 400) and Simon Bean much to the front. There wind was decidedly variable about the track too, so the place to go to cover your opponents and ensure you were the first Laser wasn't necessarily going to turn out to be the place to go to keep the clock ticking away against the RS300s...
So how did the sums work out? Peter got first place by not a very large number of seconds to snatch second in the series. Sam pipped Mike for second place, but with Peter winning that meant he only took fourth overall, just taking that place from Mike, who was fifth. Simon Bean was 4th on the night, Stephen Day 5th, and John Magrath 6th. Series wise Stuart Costigan was 6th.
I wasn't able to get results on the net again, so you'll have to look in the clubhouse or wait for the details, other than the top ten listed below. An interesting statistic is to look at the average points as awarded for race duties. They are not in the same order as the finishing places!
Pl. Name Class Pts Wins Average 1 Carl and Julie Mayhew RS400/600 11 6 3.0 2 Peter Curtis RS300 19 4 4.5 3 Rob Sumner Laser 20.6 1 2.6 4 Sam Eversfield Laser 24 2 3.0 5 Mike Curtis RS400/Laser 25 0 4.0 6 Stuart Costigan et al RS400 30.1 1 5.1 7 Mervyn Cinnamond Solo 31 0 5.0 8 Graham Potter Albacore 31.6 1 5.3 9 Mike Lipscombe Solo 40 1 5.0 10 Peter Cotterell Solo 42.2 0 6.1
Jim Champ 2006