North East Clubs 2008 Late Series Event 1 – Brechin – 25th October 2008
Report by Neil Jardine (RO)
9 boats entered the first of this year’s North East Clubs Winter Series held at the Brechin Castle Centre lake. This was a reasonable turnout and included three visitors from Buchanness, one from Aberdeen and five local skippers from Brechin.
Conditions were very challenging from the off, being a dull day with rain squalls blowing through. The wind was a South Westerly force 5-6, with fierce gusts throwing spray off the water regularly and almost blowing skippers off their feet! The entire fleet wisely elected to start on no. 3 suit and remained on it for the whole day – some even wondering if a no. 4 suit should be introduced!
The race team of Neil Jardine as OOD assisted by Mel Percival, then Ali Law and Boyd Baird managed to run 16 races comfortably whilst making good use of the excellent facilities for lunch and an afternoon coffee break. The racing took the format of ‘two and a break’ with the breaks being very welcome! The course was a relatively short windward leeward circuit with a hitch mark but with three rounds to finish, races generally lasted ten to twelve minutes each.
Some breakages looked inevitable over the day and Ali Law, having travelled from Buchanness, was the first casualty, he was off the water and packing up before the first race had even started due to technical difficulties. By the last few races the fleet had dropped to only four boats with local boys Jimmy Rodger, Boyd Baird and Dick McBride all succumbing to the gear failures in the blustery conditions.
The tried and tested 20 second handicap system was in use with only Colin Deakin and Jimmy Rodgers eligible. Colin showed a mixed set of results but by race ten he was back to scratch having finished three times in the top 3. This did little to hold him back as he posted two more top three placings before winch troubles forced his retirement.
The battle at the front of the fleet was close run and could have gone either way with consistency being critical on the day. Ian Dundas and Brian Robertson had the ‘right stuff’ producing top three places fourteen and thirteen times respectively from the 16 races run. Well done to Ian for keeping it together for the duration and to Brian for his excellent result. Colin McGinnis gave a strong challenge early on, but between lunch and afternoon coffee his bid waned a little; however a strong set of closing results made sure he finished a comfortable third overall.
The next event will be held on the 15th November at Aberdeen. It is hoped that the good natured sportsmanship shown in this event will continue throughout the rest of the series. Finally, an interesting thought raised at this event for future NE Travellers was that each club identify a coach to aid less experienced skippers and encourage their greater participation in such events.
First 3 individual positions were:
- Ian Dundas – Aberdeen
- Brian Robertson – Buchanness
- Colin McGinnis – Brechin
Final team positions taking the finishing positions of the top 3 skippers from each club
(Clubs with less than 3 skippers scored Number of entrants + 1 for each missing skipper):
- Brechin – places 3, 4, 6 – Points 13
- Buchanness – places 2, 5, dns – Points 16
- Aberdeen – places 1, dns, dns – Points 19