Eastleigh and District Model Boat Club
Seven sailors enjoyed a breezy last sail of the year although three sailors Phil (54), Julyan (43) and John (02) all had minor gear failures. In the end John Arrow and Phil Udall shared (44) over the mornings racing as the rudder problem on 54 proved to be terminal.
A double triangle course and a breeze of 5-15kts led to ‘max hull speed’ on all points of sailing with off–wind planing and broaches a plenty. Racing was as good as it gets right at the the top of A+ rig conditions.
Three of our best sailors took line honours but it was Julyan (43) with 5 wins who took home the choccies. Well done Julyan!
Brian Quinn
IOM results - 18/12/2020
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Just 5 competitors today.
The weather was mostly wet and damp with light drizzle through much of the morning; however a decent breeze, generally from the S E made for some exciting racing.
Racing was late starting as John Arrows boat got hung up on a buoy. Chris to the rescue in his dinghy! Racing eventually got underway at about 10.15.
Today was the last day of this IOM 2 month series but due to the lockdown with no racing in November and Christmas day falling next Friday, just 3 races have been completed for the series result.
Apart from Julyan on an A rig everyone else was on a B. Chris Wilson was debuting his newly finished Alternative. John Bennett had a transmitter failure and had to sit out the last two heats. And both Chris and Michael suffered some minor problems with sheets slipping out of adjustment probably due to the wet and the strong winds. We look forward to the next series starting in January.
Well done Julyan today’s winner and John Bennett Series winner.
Michael Thomas
DF95 results - 13/12/2020
Six sailors today, in a slight drizzle, but keen to get on the water in a reasonable breeze, in this case from the SE. Racing soon got underway with a nice long course, 4-w, 7, 1, 3, 7, 1, 2, 5-8 . Starts were a little interesting as most of the time the best start was on port but occasionally those on port had to scatter for a starboard starter, and the occasional gust in the last 5 seconds didn’t help matters either, but … not too many incidents there. The air around 7 was a bit iffy and the run/reach from 7 to 1 tended to turn into a beat the nearer we got to 1, with some good speed at times heading over to 3.
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There was a definite choice from 3 to 7, how long to hug the far shore before tacking across was not very constant so you could easily make the wrong choice in this leg. After 7 again it was back down to 1 jockeying for position all the way, then a procession to 2 and a relatively steady long beat up to the finish on 5-8 with, I would say, less jockeying in this last leg than we often see.
In the last race John Tufnall needed 4 attempts to cross the finish line legally with me urging Maurice to get ahead of him to help my own points difference with JT, but poor Maurice’s DF95 decided to get into irons and wasn’t going anywhere fast enough to beat John. Also in the last race Chris’s boat decided to have a winch line problem so he retired with no sheeting control. An earlier race saw Phil Udall hung up on 8, with Chris going to the rescue with his yacht, followed by the row boat when his also hung alongside Phil’s during the rescue attempt.
Although we were a little down on numbers we had a great morning’s sailing and with 9 races under our belt we get 2 discards and the following result: 1st John Bennett 11, 2nd John Tufnall 11, 3rd Chris Wilson 18, 4th John Arrow 27, 5th Maurice Clayton 28, 6th Phil Udall 36. Thanks for a good morning’s sailing guys
John Bennett
Marblehead results - 06/12/2020
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Six sailors again today. Mark sailing his “pimped up” Stark, John Bennett sailing his “pimped up Starkers 3, they have been busy during lockdown. The wind was NW and light to nearly diving with quite a few holes particularly over the far side of the lake. The course was long, 5-O, 3, 6, 7, 3, 6, 7, 4-W with more than one route up to 3, a sometimes quite fast run down to 6, a nice reach across to 7, and a dangerously close to the bank beat to the finish.
Whilst is was possible to break away at the front, it was also possible to fall back down the pack just as fast, with a bad decision or some bad air. Starts were well behaved and the worst offences took place over at 3 where it was both difficult to see and shifty winds.
First places were mainly hogged by Mark and John who had 4 wins each, but Chris pulled his finger out for the final heat and won that one. Mark was a little unlucky in two heats, he stuck himself on buoy 7 whilst attempting a sneaky overtaking manoeuvre, and later he lost control with a flat battery situation.
With 9 heats in the bag we get 2 discards and the following result: 1st John Bennett 11, 2nd Mark Robinson 12, 3rd Chris Wilson 23, 4th Julyan Richardson 24, 5th Michael Thomas 24, 6th Maurice Clayton 31.
It was a good morning of sailing and banter, great to be back on the lake again with these lovely Marbleheads.
John Bennett
