2021-22 IOMMDWCS R2 Bournville RS&MBC Results.

Sunday 23rd January saw the IOM series skippers assemble at Manor Park RSC who had offered the use of their venue at Kings Bromley to Bournville RS&MBC for the re-scheduled event. 18 skippers signed on with a couple of the original enty not being able to attend the event. Bill Green & Mark Dicks from Bournville, were acting as the race committee ably assisted by Roy & Nancy Johnson from MP. Darin Ballington was out in the club boat setting out the course as the rest of the crew were assembling their boats. Top suits were the order of the day as the weather was a light SW of about 3-4mph with several wind holes and eddies to negociate. The temperature outside showed on the car dash as 4C, I can confirm that most of the skippers and race team were well wrapped up for the cold, not least were the finish line team. Thanks to the host club for putting the water bolier on, the tea and coffee was greatly appreciated.

Bill Green called all together for the initial briefing at 10:00am saying that he would be running the event as a single fleet and that the course would be two laps of the now standard course for Manor Park, that was a windward mark with offset and a downwind gate. He ran the first two races back to back and then we looked at the sailing time of each race and decided that we would keep with a two lap race whilst there was sufficient wind. After time to have a quick check and re-tune of the boats they were all back on the water. The windward mark was a bit of a challenge to get to for some as the wind sometime abandoned them at the mark whilst others got round and away without any apparent difficulty, Darin was setting the standard once again with two first & two seconds from the first four races, he was closely followed by Nigel Barrow who had come up from Frensham Pond RSG and he scored one first, two seconds & a fourth, so it looked like it might be close. There were also two other travelling skippers who were scoring some good results, Dorian Crease from Two Islands RYC & Brian Wharton from Woodspring MSC. Brian was sailing a Red Wine (42) and going well with a first and two seconds in his overall results. It was good to see other skippers join in to the IOM Midland District winter series, and we hope that you enjoyed the event.

After lunch Bill and Darin decided to make a small change to the course as the wind had moved more Westerly, this had made the course slightly longer. We also lost one of the skippers John Burgoine, so were down to 17. Another quick warm up at 14:15 and Bill announced that he would start two more races and that would be it for the day. The wind was getting lighter and we aslo chatted about making the final race only a single lap, in the end this was not necessary. Unfortunatley in race 11 Tracey Ballington returned to the dock saying that her mainsail would not go out on the run, once ashore this was diagnosed as a winch problem, and with only one race left she decided reluctantly withdrew from that.  After a 10th in race 8 Nigel Barrow then finished the event with 3 first places, congratulations Nigel, Darin saying that he really enjoyed the competition. See full results here: 21-22 IOMMDWCS R2

Bill Green then called the skippers together for the prize presentation, firstly thanking Manor Park RSC for their use of the venue and wished everyone a safe trip home and see you at the next one, which will be the final event of this winters IOM series at Lincoln RSC on 13th February. Details have already been published along with the MYA online race entry system.

The full 2021-2022 IOM winter series results after round 2 are here: https://mya-uk.org.uk/districts/midlands/md-iom-champion-skipper-series/iommdcs-series-results/

Thanks also to Erol who took some good pictures, see the gallery below.