A tale of two halves. Jason and Robin fighting it out at the front and Andy and Lawrence fighting it out at the back. The gusty wind inshore and the strengthening tide further out made for tricky decisions about where to head on the beat. Positions swung back and forth but in both races the same result. Jason ahead at the front and Lawrence ahead at the rear.

The series is now sewn up with two races next week to go. Only the first 3 (Steve, Jason and Robin – in that order) can qualify. Again, despite 25 boats taking part, the small number who have sailed enough races has been disappointing. Hats off to Robin who, despite returning to Wales half way through the series, has sailed every race since to finish in the prizes.

Results

An Afternoon In The Life Of A Sully OOD

Sully Sailing Club is an impossible place for a Race Officer!. You try to set a course with a beat but the wind is offshore, so you compromise with a reaching start, which isn’t bad as the tide is out so it’s a short line. You lay this course and the wind swings 180 degrees, so you rush around all the boats and tell them that we will go the opposite way round to the diagram. This may explain why Danny went the wrong way around the second mark but with the tide running I can understand his frustration and why he gave up at that point.

This is fine except everyone is now beating into the tide which makes for a very strung out race. Then the wind swings back to the south giving the Mirror an advantage as he doesn’t have to beat against the tide (but he will still be stuffed by the tide anyway) but at least he finishes relatively quickly. 

So for the second race you move the mark to try and get a beat but the wind swings even further making all legs fetches. You now have to decide whether everyone is enjoying an afternoon sail (and let it run) or whether with no beat there is no skill and they would rather stop. You decide that it is a nice day and they will enjoy another lap and besides, the wind has come up a little so you let them go round again. The Lasers will do three laps and pass the Mirror who should manage two. Only then the wind dies and the Mirror is making no progress.

At this stage I gave up. I tell the Mirror that we will give him his time from the first lap and go to pick up the buoys, only to find that one of them is snagged in the rocks so we miss getting photos of everyone finishing as we drag the anchor clear of the bottom.

Like I said, Sully is impossible

Results

Results