Midweek Mug 3
More work was done on the pontoon during the misty, drizzly morning while contractors began digging out the drainage ditch behind the boatpark. Fingers are crossed for a less muddy end of season! By the afternoon the clouds had lifted somewhat and one could see at least as far as Pinky. The fresh north-westerlies were relatively consistent, propelling the fleet leaders around a longish course in under fifteen minutes.
Sally Wills in the Club Bosun started well, crossing the start line first, with Brian Pollard in his Bosun second, Linda Spiller in the first of the single-handers, third, and Graham Joyce on his first outing of the season, fourth. Robin Spiller (Streaker) and John Dabbs (Gull) both took an unconscionable amount of time to cross the line and get going. Two battles developed. The Bosuns took quite different approaches to the beat to West, Brian keeping much further to windward and crossing Sally’s wake only just behind her before they reached the buoy. They set off for Pinky neck and neck but stayed in the same order until lap 3 (of four) when Sally seems to have run amok somewhere near West, collided with Brian and the buoy, done many penalty turns and given Brian a lead he never lost. The other battle concerned Linda Spiller in her Radial and Graham Joyce in his Full. In the initial beat to West Linda extended her lead over Graham to half the width of the Lake, but in the reach to Pinkie and the run back to Middle, Graham made up a lot of ground. In the process both overtook the skirmishing Bosuns. The gap between them continued to extend and contract but Graham, perhaps rusty after eight months off the water, never managed to take full advantage of his Laser’s bigger sail. Meanwhile Robin Spiller tried to make up the ground he had lost at the start and to a large extent succeeded. He passed the Bosuns and was only a handful of seconds behind Graham Joyce at the end. With a better start he could have won. The Dabbs Gull sailed serenely in the rear but with a start like that didn’t deserve the boost up the order that the handicap gave it.
Results:
- Linda Spiller (Laser Radial)
- Robin Spiller (Streaker)
- John Dabbs(Gull)
- Brian and Nathan Pollard (Bosun)
- Sally Wills and Roger Heasman (Bosun)
- Graham Joyce (Laser Full)
The Commodore was Officer of the Day and was grateful to the Vice Commodore for applying the handicaps.