Greetings members,

Yesterday was much nicer than the forecast predicted, I think we only saw one broach, however it was very, very shifty….and dual use of ‘very’ means exactly what it says. Anzan (RO) and I (assistant) were quite pleased we were not sailing. Obviously the forecast dissuaded sailors because we had a small fleet of only 10 boats………more biscuits for everyone at tea time though.

Anzan chose a trapezoid course with a mark foy start and I only dropped 2 marks off before the wind shifted from NE to N, so we desisted with any more mark laying util it settled direction.

After a period it sort of settled so we had to devise a new course and finally we got underway. For the first 6 heats we had a 3 lap course but with another big shift into NW we had to alter course again to get proper beats. What struck us as race committee was how some of our top sailors struggled in these shifty conditions, and I can empathise with this, because although not a top sailor, I never do any good in those conditions either.

Behaviour was good and now we applaud those who reached podium glory, Owen Henwood, who we suspected would do well with his consistency all day, Ralph Biggs and Cliff Bishop. These are the ones who coped best with the shifty conditions.