Well almost! With Bass Week over and the grounds cleared, there was a one day triathlon run from the club on Saturday before normality returned with racing on Sunday.
Well almost! The weather had other ideas. Fourteen boats took to the water for the morning race, the course was set, the start signalled and off they went. But nobody got very far as the wind died completely and there was no alternative but to signal that the race was abandoned. Competitors were towed back to the Club by the safety boat crews to start an early lunch.
A sea breeze set in at around 1.30pm and the race officer correctly decided that it was sufficient go around the complete Lake. The race was the Banana Stakes named after the prize of a bunch of bananas presented annually to the winner in the distant past by the late Bill Anderson who was a wholesale fruiterer. It was sailed on personal handicap with all boats starting together.
So, in light winds and glorious sunshine, competitors headed to the Keswick end of the Lake at which point the RS400’s of Steve and Elaine Hunt and Neil and Judith Currie were leading on the water. These boats were to stay ahead for the remainder of the eighty minutes it took them to complete the race but the crews then had to wait to see how the later competitors – some taking two hours to complete the course – had fared. And it was a crew who were sailing on the lake for the first time in 2010, Stuart and John Brookes in their Flying Fifteen who were declared winners. The GP14’s of Nigel Lewis and Claudie Black and Dave and Lynn Lawson took the next positions ahead of the Mirror of Alan Waugh.
The race was a round in the Sandra’s Salver series for lady crews and Claudie Black’s result moves her into third position in the standings behind Elaine Hunt who leads the series from Michaela Sheard. There are two rounds remaining in this competition of which the next one will be contested this coming weekend.