The simple W/L course of Oyster, Nord Homes emerged after a lot of soul searching.

Fi and the race team threatened an AP as they had spotted a massive rain cloud approaching and there was lightning over the Purbecks

The cloud hit at 1300 - roughly launch time for many and precipitated a lot (and I mean a lot) of wet stuff together with fruity gusts

Luckily it only lasted 10 minutes or so before changing to mere rain with 17 gusting 21 its breeze from that unheard of direction of SW.
The What’sApp group jokes about the conditions put off a few takers who therefore missed aperfectly manageable set of conditions on a well set course.

We needed to get out of the water by 1530 so multiple laps were set but the 2 laps we sailed meant all boats were ashore by cut off time. The time limit was imposed by an enthusiastic ebb tide so no changes of direction to worry about.

15 boats raced away from the start with different options of the best way to avoid the contrary tide. 6 boats went via the quay, the other 9 crossing the channel early and sailing the other side of the main channel. About three quarters of the way to Oyster as the fleet were starting to converge Pete/Jo and Chris/Nadia were looking promising to be 1,2 at the mark but before they could cross ourselves and Crispin/Steve a useful left shift came in allowing the left hand group to approach the mark first.

We tacked on a comfortable lay line allowing for the tide in the lead and Crispin. thinking we had a good lay line, tacked on our windward hip. It soon became obvious to us that we needed to make 2 more tacks to get round the mark so executed them before getting in the zone. Crispin also had more tide than he wanted but rather than tack he shot the mark head to wind forcing us to keep clear. The downsides of this approach rapidly became apparent as now with no steerage way they struggled to bear away (holding us out as well) to invite Pete/Jo to perform a normal bear away and take the lead. I am convinced they were chuckling as they sailed past. I was watching 4101 very carefully as they performed this trick and they sailed exactly head to wind - I was hoping they would go a few degrees too far and then be tacking too close. Pete noted that they did not quite hit the mark either so a clean ’stunt’ within the rules.

Some of us gybed off towards the stronger favourable tide in the main channel but with the wind flicking left from time to time we just sailed extra distance with the leaders making the whole leg without a gybe.

The middle of the fleet contrived to arrive at Nord Homes in line abreast but after much polite discussion, no incidents were reported to this writer.

Order at Nord Homes first time round was Pete/Jo, Crispin/Steve, Ourselves (Geof/Alan), Chris/Nadia, Ian/Mike

After rounding outside Pete/Jo, Crispin/Steve managed to find a lee bow from the tide which worked well for a time till the wind headed a little and they had to spend too much time in the adverse current.
Chris/Nadia sailed very well and managed to roll us from leeward in a ’straight’ line to then squeeze us into an extra 2 tacks that enabled them to round Oyster for the second time in second place.

There were then no further place changes in the leading bunch to complete a shortened course after 2 laps.

Results
3793 Pete/Jo
4025 Chris/Nadia
4088 Geof/Alan
4101 Crispin/Steve
3922 Ian/Mike
3934 Grahm/Homfrey
3966 Richard/Alan
4036 Dick/Richard
3974 Ann/John
3971 David/Steve R
3901 Peter/Steve P
4054 Andy/Simon
4027 Mike/Paul
3936 Peter/Martin
3965 David/Gareth

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4Patrick Keats, Richard Ledger and 2 others