Early Bird Series – 1st May 2022

A wet morning with a SSW F3-4 breeze. A more pleasant wind direction, but less pleasant weather with rain instead of the sun which we’ve had the last few weeks. 5 boats again with 2 Lasers (but Neil and Andrew E instead of Danny and Andy T), a Topaz, a Comet and an RS700.

Andrew was off to a flying start forcing Neil and Steve to crash tack (Steve into the start mark), Steve also hit the first mark and after doing all the turns was half way to the 3rd mark before managing to overtake Andrew. Neil spent the race trying in vain to catch Andrew who held on to finish 1st with Neil 2nd and Steve 3rd on handicap. Lawrence and Teilo battled it out for 4th and 5th in the Comet and Topaz.

Race 2 started with Teilo daring a port flyer that didn’t quite pay off, but the first 4 boats closely following from the line with Lawrence holding a port tack. This saw him making gains upwind, which the whole fleet took advantage of on their second laps. Steve was quicker to pull into the lead this time. The lasers were again very evenly matched with Andrew slightly ahead at first, but in heading towards the windward mark he chose to go up the middle and Neil was able to make the gains he needed to finally make it past, and had a solid lead at that point which Andrew just couldn’t eat into.

The Topaz had some trouble making it round the windward mark with the tide hampering efforts several times. This allowed The Comet to pull away for a finish that was heating up the heels of the two lasers. Steve on the wire with his kite was pulling ahead of the lasers but as the wind swung more to the south-west he couldn’t make the marks; it wasn’t to be a spinnaker finish and again he finished 3rd on handicap behind Neil in 1st and Andrew 2nd.

Overall Danny remains in the lead in the series, followed by Neil and Andrew.

Results