An opportunity missed

Expectation for today’s race were sky high with a harbour full of water and a forecast of sunshine and wind, could it be the perfect day?. Soon news spread around the boat park, there was an open meeting in the top triangle and was “out of bounds”, in that instant hopes of the perfect day were dashed.

We were off on a tour of the southern end of the harbour, with a course of X, J, ▲, T , ▲ , A , E ,  taking in The lower Wych. Whitely lake, Brownsea roads, South Deep and Rum row.

Before  I get to our start the Dart class start is worthy of mention as it coincided with the departure of the Condor fast cat, forcing the fleet into an early tack to avoid it. I think I know who the Harbour Master will be ringing first thing Monday morning.

Incidentally it appears the Condors scheduled departure time is 14.15 for the rest of the summer season.

Back to the fifteens, the  fleet got away cleanly and competitively, initially the right paid but in the end the left came good (good old Brownsea bend), Ian Z and mike B rounded “X” first and set off to tackle the Brownsea wind shadow, at J they had maintained their lead with Crispin and Steve in second and Robs, Shaw and Walford in third (sorry if I’ve got that wrong), Ian and Crispin’s positions would remain for the rest of the race and the Rob’s would be passed by your correspondent. The 2 laps up and down south deep proved pretty uneventful, in fact it began to feel more like a spirited sail than a race in our boat as we took in the local scenery and tried to identify Harry Redknapp’s new house.

A close reach back to the finish concluded proceedings.

A perfect sailing day, but not quite the perfect race.

1st 3922 Ian and Mike

2nd 4101 Crispin and Steve

3rd Bob and Huw

4th Rob Shaw and Rob Walford