Bob Auton and Roy Bickerstaffe ran an excellent day’s racing for us today.

First up, they laid out a nice course of 4 marks all to port. Then they put in a nice long start/finish line without too much bias, and dictated Mass Start 1 Fleet. Then to top it off they organised a fresh easterly with a few unpredictable wind-shifts here and there.

Each heat was 2 laps, and they expertly counted them, so the whole day was very efficient. Given the blustery conditions and some blustering sailors, there were naturally a few incidents to be sorted out, but none that required arbitration.

There were a couple of hard luck stories- Roger Banfield couldn’t solve some electrical problems, and Dayele almost blew up his boat by shorting out too many wires, but got it going eventually.

The worst luck was with your author, who was doing amazingly well (3rd) in the first lap of the last heat, when an extraordinarily strong gust of wind carried away the main sheet on the downwind leg. This had no effect until the bottom marks were rounded of course and despite my best efforts the boat just wouldn’t sail upwind with the main flapping loosely in the breeze.

A nice cup of tea and some fine chocolate biscuits settled the nerves after all that high-speed sailing. Thanks Bob and Roy, and congratulations to Polly, Ron and Dayele for podiuming.