IOM Scottish Travellers Event 2 – Paisley – 21st June 2008

Report by Richard Rowan      Score Sheet

Due to an infestation of weed at Barshaw Park, Paisley’s Travellers event was moved to Greenock. The race team of RO Hughie Shields, Robert Rooney and John Mathieson assisted by Terry Allison welcomed a very high entry of 18 boats to Murdieston Dam. The event was run in accordance with the 2008 Sailing Instructions which provided for 13 skippers to have a 20 sec starting advantage, although not all the qualifying skippers took their advantage. The event was run in two heats with starting advantages not applying to B heat starts after the seeding race.

The event saw a number of skippers taking part in the Travellers series for the first time – in no particular order – Dave Hoey Jnr, Tom McBeth and Brian Lamont all from Greenock. A warm welcome back was also extended to Drew Taylor from Paisley who has been absent from radio yacht racing for many years.
The sailing started in a light easterly breeze which provided the skippers with the challenge of regular 20 to 30 degree shifts. Fortunately, there weren’t too many holes in the wind allowing the race team to keep the heats moving quickly. The conditions remained like this throughout the day with the exception of a period of about 45 minutes when the wind direction went into the south – setting a course in southerly winds at Greenock is a challenge not only for the race team but also for the skippers (see more about this below).

The morning’s racing saw Richard Rowan move into a narrow lead ahead of David Loomes, Robert Brown, Neil Jardine and Richard Costigan. Ian Dundas was struggling to get his new Widget up to speed in the light conditions and was well behind the leaders.

After lunch, Richard Rowan continued to keep ahead with Robert Brown overtaking David Loomes. With an every so slightly stronger breeze in the early part of the afternoon, Ian Dundas had started to get more boat speed and was catching the front group. A first overall was looking good for Richard Rowan until the penultimate race – this was the one sailed in the southerly breeze with the two windward marks being a long way across the pond – in light and shifty conditions and with a good lead over his main competitors, Richard misjudged his mark rounding with 3 legs to go to the finish and ended up with his fin caught in the mark mooring line. This mistake let Robert Brown overtake Drew Taylor to win the race. So, in the final race, all Richard had to do was to get a good finishing position – however, he had a bad race and finished last in the A heat.

When the prize winners were announced, Dave Hoey Jnr was awarded the prize for the youngest competitor, Richard Costigan took third place with 27.4 points, Richard Rowan dropped to second place with 26 points and Robert Brown emerged the worthy winner with 24 points. As the results show, Ian Dundas and David Loomes were not very far behind the leaders.

A very close days sailing !

The next IOM Travellers event is at Brechin on 12th July.

Top placings were: