North East Clubs    2005 Early Series Event 2 - Aberdeen - 5th March 2005
There was a big turnout for the second in the early 2005 winter series with 6 skippers from Aberdeen and 5 from the Buchanness Club.  Unfortunately Brechin Castle were unable to attend this event as their regular participating skippers were either skiing or working offshore. A brisk North Easterly wind meant racing got underway with No 2 Rigs.  With the RYGG Handicap system being used there were often many boats trying to round marks at the same time as the scratch boats caught up with the slower boats.  This meant that there were lots of place changes in the races as inexperienced and experienced skippers were required to take penalty turns for rule infringement or for touching or even missing marks. A violent hail storm arrived during race 3 which threatened the event but luckily this passed through reasonably quickly and after a short break to allow skippers to get feeling back into their hands we were treated to clear skies and steady winds. 15 Races were held around an Olympic style course. Interestingly,  scratch sailors only won 8 races whilst the handicap sailors won 7 between them.  Of the scratch sailors,  Ali Law won 6 and Ian Dundas won 2 races. From the handicap sailors,  Morton Park won a race from red handicap (30 secs) and Brian Robertson won 3,  Allan Allsop won 2 and Shaky Bill won 1 all from the yellow handicap start (20 secs).  There was also a good showing from Ken Ewen with 4 second places from a red handicap.  Ken was also reliable in this regatta with no gear failures.  Unfortunately Colin Brown, Jimmy Bisset and Morton Park did have gear failure which pushed them down the finishing position table.
Final positions were: Full results table (pdf file)	Position Skipper Club Hull Design Points 1 Ali Law   Buchanness Topico 28 2 Ian Dundas Aberdeen Stealth 49 3 Shaky Bill Buchanness TS2 59 4 Brian Robertson Buchaness Italiko 60 on countback 5 Alan Allsop Buchanness Oscar 60 6 Morton Park Aberdeen Kite 72 on countback 7 Colin Tait Aberdeen Italiko 72 8 Ken Ewen Aberdeen 77 9 D Latter Aberdeen 96 10 C Brown Buchaness 99 11 Jimmy Bisset Aberdeen 110
Skippers brave the elements