An early start (work at 4.30am) meant I had plenty of time watching the absence of wind with amusement. I even briefly felt sorry for the team racers, who've struggled more than us to get going this year, but the forecast all week has been dead in the morning with some breeze later.

Would later come in time for us?

There was a clear split in thinking at the interceptor/procrastination station, some went home, some went sailing, one jumped camp and changed his mind having proudly declared "decision made" at 11.30 in the bar.

That left 11 of us heading to the line where Fi had got busy setting a RoRo,E,+,K,E,3 in a fast dropping tide and a deadline to be back around 14.30 in a reasonable 7-12 knot breeze.

2 hoots at the line sent 4114 and 4111 back for another go at starting, 4019 and 4020 threw the dice, carried on and were later thrown out for being on the course side.

This was probably the first clue the tide was still coming in and with the fleet split fairly equally left and right, middle (ish) was unusually the quickest way to the first mark, we tried a bit of left, a bit of right and rounded around 6th.

Ann & John carried on with their recent turn of speed and were first there, followed by 4114 and 3934. 4111 was in the mix, so was 3901 and there was a bit of "sitting on top" going on with 3936 parking firmly in our wind. We gybed back out to the right to get clear and I guess picked up a bit of the turning tide and later a nice angle into Nord Homes to round just behind 3974 and 4111 with 3901 a few boat lengths back and the rest of the pack some way down and I had stopped tracking what was happening in the bunch back at Stakes.

With 4114 and 3934 sailing away the next group swapped places a few times upwind, with 4111 escaping us and Ann by Stakes, positions held all the way down the run (although staying high and reachy down the channel definitely helped both times) and let us both close up on Mervyn.

We took a short tack out to clear Mervyn's dirt after rounding very close on his heels and then a long port tack until we could lay the line.

Mervyn had gone out by then and lost out in the tide, with Ann having squeezed by us at the line, but with both those two quite near the box we went to the pin and came back with some separation and were able to sail more or less right up to the wall at the Quay Haven dock whilst they tacked out - and that proved to be our biggest gain of the day.

We were now firmly in the homework position, some way behind Graham & Homfray who were still making Richard and Jack work for the silverware, but clear enough from behind that any more place swaps were unlikely once we spotted Fi and Lisa had locked up the box and were sat in Rib 5 at Nord Homes waiting to go and collect a well earned gin & cake.
I'm not sure the outer on our jib sheet would have survived another beat, with a single digit count of threads left holding it together by then.

A well timed end that even let everyone dodge the AB's on the slip and get out in deep water instead of mud.
It looks like the weather is finally breaking, with wind on the way - will it be too much?

Results:
1 - 4114 - Richard & Jack (Barry Rolfe Trophy)
2 - 3934 - Graham & Homfray
3 - 3922 - Martin & Mike B
4 - 3974 - Ann & John
5 - 4111 - Mervyn & Ron
6 - 3901 - Peter B & Nick C
7 - 4027 - Mike C & Roger
8 - 3936 - Peter V & Peter T
9 - 4016 - Emma & John
4019 (OCS) - Steve & Rob
4020 (OCS - Graham & Ben

Footnote - this is the first race this year that 3966 has missed, because Richard was helping at the team racing, so I have included the photo of them.  Mervyn