We tamed the wind, and the rain eased too! As the clouds lifted off Skiddaw, a snow covering was exposed! The competitors were signed up, but the wind wasn’t playing ball. An early morning breeze faded, shifted, swung, faded, and finally reappeared, though its direction would prove to be variable throughout the afternoon.
The lack of wind was the cause of an hours postponement, but racing eventually got underway. The first couple of (if not all) races had a steady general northerly direction but there were some major shifts that caught various sailors, including leaders out, causing the occasional capsize to windward. Even the commodore fell out of his boat at one stage!
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In the 3rd race a major wind shift started to affect the course, so the race was curtailed early. What was to be the final race of the day was held in a reasonable, but variable, westerly.
Some great racing in some testing conditions. Hopefully the wind will be better behaved in the morning.
A curry night on Saturday may have had an affect on Sunday’s wind, which although it started light, it finally came in with a vengeance by the end of the day’s racing.
As with Saturday, the direction was all over the place, varying from minute to minute adding to the challenge of setting the beat and a reasonable start line. The fleet were given the benefit of the doubt for the first two starts which resulted in general recalls, but the introduction of the black flag resulted in third time lucky for the start of race 5.
The shifting winds necessitated moving the start line a couple more times for subsequent races. Sailors endured sun, rain and hail, together with strengthening winds with the final race being the most spectacular with numerous capsizes.
The battle for the winners trophy was hard fought, with only a single point pushing overnight leaders Paul and Jude Allen from Leigh & Lowton into 2nd place behind Chris Pickles and Matt from Delph.
Commodore Mark Somerville and Joe Roberts were best Bass boat at 6th, with Vice Commodore Robin Dawson and Phil Davenport 7th.
