DF TT Weekend Fleetwood 28-29th April 2018 Report & Results

31 DF 65’s & 36 DF 95’s from 14 clubs descended on Fleetwood for rounds 5&6 of the National DF Travellers series. With sunny skies & wind almost being co-operative, blowing from the north-east, racing started on time at 10am on sat with 2 fleets of DF 65’s. Unfortunately the wind became less co-operative as the day progressed& at one point was blowing due Northerly (across Fleetwood lake from the sea) which led to some imaginative course setting. However, by around 2 pm a sea breeze had almost overcome the gradient wind & we had some decent length windward / leeward courses to finish the day.

We introduced & race within the race, a TOT (Team of Two).
At lunch time we combined the first & last boats, then 2nd & 2nd from last, & so on to create 15 teams of 2 & we encouraged the top sailors to assist the lower one with boat set up etc. This brought in a separate spirit of help & camaraderie to the event & it was surprising how close the end results were. The winning Team Of Two each won Fleetwood MY&PBC glass with a miniature bottle of Rum in it. So they had their very own TOT!!!

Amazingly this was won on both days by Liz Tushingham, drawn on sat with Chris Howarth of Fleetwood, and on Sunday with Mick Chaimberlin of Lincoln.

Sat night around 24 of us enjoyed dinner & drinks in the Mount Hotel (2 steaks & bottle of wine £20. very nice)

Sunday dawned with a nice ENE wind about 10 knts which allowed a long windward/leeward course of 200 yards to be set. The moved around a bit so we were constantly trimming the gate & start line to get them fair. First race started on time at 09.30 Race time was approx 12 mins. The 95’s were able to “stretch their legs” over this long course particularly downwind when the sailors also had to stretch theirs, as they were covering over half a mile per race!

8 races were completed by the 65’s & 9 were completed by the 95’s

Derek Priestley