IOM Scottish Travellers Event 4 – Buchanness – 2nd August 2008

Report by Ali Law    Score Sheet

Eight skippers turned up to take part in the fourth of the six Scottish Traveller events. This was a bit disappointing for the race committee who had put a lot of time and energy into making sure that the regatta would be a success.
The weather was much as predicted by the Met Office with the wind coming from the S/W between 6 and 12 mph for most of the morning and in the afternoon going into the south for a time with some rain. The stronger gusts that had been predicted lasted for an hour at a time. So the conditions made for a good all round day.

RO Colin Deakin called the skippers to the briefing at 9:45 and had the first race on the water by 10:05. With the help of Ali Law in the boat, he set a long course over the whole length of the reservoir using the traditional triangle and sausage with port rounding. Because of the lack of a large entry on Friday, Colin made the decision to have one of the race team sail to make up the numbers – this meant he had to do the observing assisted by Sandy Forbes and Tony Webster on the finishing line.

As per the agreed Scottish SSI’s, Colin sailed two races back to back with a ten minute break. Due to the length of the races about 15 minutes) the format worked very well so that, when complemented with a 45 minute lunch break, meant that Sunday was not a day of sore bodies for the skippers!

Three skippers accepted their starting advantage whilst a fourth declined but all had gained scratch by race nine at which point three had retired. The racing was very close, that is, it was not strung out over the length and breadth of the area but was very hard fought and the slightest error of judgement meant losing places. At the beginning the RO briefed the skippers that protests were allowed and we would be using the RYA Advisory and Arbitratory hearing system but no one protested and turns were done on the water.

The changeable conditions made it a bit of a grind when the wind gusted up – the heavy weather boats would be favoured and the others had to hang on. But when it lightened the light weather boats gainded the advantage back sailed. Peterhead lived up to its reputation once again with all the seasons in one day and never a boring moment.

As can be seen from the score sheet Ian Dundas and Ali Law were “fighting” it out at the front of the field and what is interesting from the detailed scores is that before discards they were both on 45 points but Ali had higher placingfs to discard and so came in first.

The Buchanness club would like to thank all those who made the effort to travel up and we hope that you were rewarded with a great day’s sailing.

Top placings were: