Greetings all,

Attached are yesterdays race results. We sailed at Lake Rua and it was a beautiful day, warm and very little breeze, so warm in fact that several swimmers were still training, and some without wetsuits. Yesterdays race had 2 notable features of comment to which I will apply my pen in due course. RO was Glen Church assisted by Russell Wenham, and with the complete lack of wind before the marks were set, Glen said he did not know where to set the marks. By the way, thank you Owen Henwood for converting all our motors and batteries to a failsafe system which works wonderfully well.

Finally we got a wisp of enough wind for the race committee to get a wind direction and set a course so off we meandered around the course all afternoon, and managed 7 heats. Well done race committee. The less I say about my performance the better but it was better than last week, however apart from the infamous Polly, the race committee could not predict the other podium placings, those exalted beings were, Polly, Bob and Ron. Congratulations you 3 for handling the conditions so well. The racing was a time of intense concentration and sometimes you could have heard a pin drop, that was a comment from Peter Bradley.

Now I will apply my pen to the 2 features of comment, and they are both covered under the rule of SPORTSMANSHIP. Firstly, Paul Campbell emailed me and requested that I dnf him in heat 1 and heat 2, because he realised he had sailed the wrong course. His placings in those heats were 10 and 4. Now his points added up to an extra 40 instead of 14. I must say my glowering hatred of him for beating me, turned instantly to praise and admiration at such worthy honesty, in fact he can beat me for the rest of my life without a murmur from me……..that does not apply to Glen Church however.

The second matter is this. It has come to my attention that at least one boat yesterday was sailed by 2 different skippers. I know the owner was being kind in loaning his boat to someone who had forgotten essential equipment but that is not acceptable for Saturday sailing. Sailors may do this on Wednesdays or Mondays where no results are taken but not Saturdays. When a competitor registers, that is the designated person who must sail the boat and for whom the results stand, if the replacement skipper is a better sailor than the registered sailor that is unfair to the rest of the fleet. So several rules cover this issue; Rule 2 FAIR SAILING,  E1.2(b), E4.2, E4.4. Your options are; inform the race committee that an undesignated sailor will be sailing in the next heat and they will score the boat dns, or, designate your boat to someone else and they sail all heats.