IOM Scottish Travellers Event 1 – Aberdeen – 23rd April 2005

The 2005 Scottish IOM Travellers Championship kicked off at Inchgarth in Aberdeen with a turnout of 11 boats. For the first time in a long time, two skippers form Levenhall took part – Richard Ennos and Dane Ashby. However, unfortunately, there were no visitors from Brechin (that club having been a stalwart supporter of the Travellers series in recent years).

Race team Ian Dundas and Alistair Struthers faced a difficult day as the wind was varying by over 90 degrees just prior to the first start. This pattern was present throughout the day, constantly requiring Ian to change the marks of the course and to reset the starting line. For the sailors, over the day the wind generally held at a strength of between 5 and 10 knots, but with little puffs and lifts coming on both sides of the course, getting it right proved quite difficult.

Over the eight races in the moring, Richard Rowan opened a lead over Alastair Law, Graham Campbell and David Loomes (all of whom used up their eventual discards with each having two retirements or last places). Local skipper Jimmy Bisset sailing a competitive Stealth was regularly to be seen at the front of the fleet at the first mark but found it difficult to convert his good starts into good finishing places.

In the afternoon races, Alastair Law settled down and managed a very consistent series of results with Richard Rowan mostly behind. Gradually over the afternoon, Alastair whittled away at Richard’s lunchtime lead and eventually finished with a reasonable margin after his bad morning race results were discarded. Graham Campbell sailing his newly acquired Italico for the very first time started to show the potential of the boat to produce a very good afternoon’s score sheet – this eventually pulled him ahead of David Loomes (they finished 3rd and 4th overall) with local skipper Jimmy Bisset eventually finishing in a much improved 5th place overall.

Score sheet