I had always understood that on one’s birthday “many happy returns” was a desire to wish someone a long life and many more birthdays. This was not the case yesterday…many happy returns meant returning once again to writing the Flying Fifteen race report. Even our esteemed scribe and Class Vice Captain commented that the only thing I had to do on my birthday was not come third. One job and I blew it!

 

On the subject of wind, the pre-race boat park chat was a rumour that Pete or Jo Allam (not sure which or maybe both?) refused to sail if it was blowing more than 20kts for fear of damaging their beautifully decorated and manicured nails. True to their word they didn’t sail. Surely a Rasputin award deserved?

 

Anyway, to the racing. It was a gloriously warm and sunny with a fresh westerly. The forecast was up around 19kts gusting to mid 20’s. I heard afterwards that we had a range from as low as 8kts and up to 26kts.

 

A well behaved fleet got away on the first attempt with a bias towards the platform for a short beat heading to Wembley Heating. The majority tacked onto port at the first opportunity and then back onto starboard once on the layline. A few were caught out by the shifty west/ north westerly coming off the Quay which necessitated some late port tacks at a crowded first mark. At least one boat (Ann and John (3974) had to bail out and gybe around.

 

We were first to round (4058) followed by Crispin and Steve (4101) and Ian and Mike (3922). The next leg was a windy reach to Piccadilly. All three leading boats made the mistake of trying to fly their spinnakers on a a leg that was far too tight and had to drop hastily. A fast and furious 2 sail reach followed and despite the spinnaker shenanigans early on the leg the placing were unchanged rounding Piccadilly.

 

Next a long beat up to Hutchins. A shifty breeze which Ian and Mike mastered better than us to take the lead which I believe they held for the rest of the race. Meanwhile Crispin and Steve and ourselves swapped places over the next few legs which essentially comprised sailing upwind and downwind in perfect sailing conditions in the top triangle.

 

The penultimate leg was a run down to Glovers from Morris Lane. The breeze had softened a little but with some stronger gusts coming down the track which compressed the fleet. It was game of trying to catch the gusts and stay in them for as long as possible. Colin and (?) in 3916 and David and Anne-Laure in 4125 were the main beneficiaries with the leading 5 boats rounding Glovers all within 50 metres of each other.

 

Despite it being my birthday, Ian and Mike sat on us to the finish and rather unsportingly Crispin and Steve slipped through us to take second, ourselves third closely followed by David and Anne-Laure in forth.

 

But for those pesky boats that beat us it would have been a perfect birthday.

 

Thank you once again to Fi and her team for a wonderful day’s racing and well done to Ian and Mike for a race very well sailed.

 

Phil Cotton 4058

 

RTD 4016

RTD 3934

DNS 3973

DNS 4060