IOM Scottish Travellers Event 5 – Levenhall – 2nd September 2006

Report and very much personal observations by Richard Rowan

Score Sheet

Event number 5 in the 2006 Scottish IOM Travellers took place in light to medium conditions at the Levenhall pond with an entry of 10 boats, this being smaller than the 2006 average so far. Race Officer Dane Ashby assisted by the 2 Levenhall Sandys managed a good 17 races despite a big delay towards the end of the day to permit several competitors to make repairs.
The wind direction started from the south which immediately gave Dane the problem of laying a start line that could be watched by the race team but with enough distance to the windward mark. This arrangement lasted until just after the lunch break. However, the overall course and varying wind direction was such that it was possible to overtake and be overtaken on the windward legs.

Yours truly made a real beezer of a start to the days sailing by winning 5 out of the first 6 races. It just seemed that I couldn’t sail the mean green machine in the wrong direction. I decided that this was due to my friend from Ireland visiting again. Of the top skippers, neither Ali Law nor Ian Dundas were having the start that they might have wanted – in fact, Ian had such a bad start to the days sailing that he never seemed to really get motoring after that. Local skipper Will Davies settled in well and began to move up the ranking with a series of 2nd and then 1st places from race 4 onwards.

As lunch time approached, rain gradually came in so that over the break, it was raining seriously heavy and this had taken the wind away. Everyone was a bit reluctant to come out of their hidey holes to start the afternoons sailing, but much to our surprise, the heavy rain cleared and a good breeze came in from the east. Dane then moved the course down to the west corner – this being a part of the pond in which we haven’t sailed at a Travellers for many years now. I well remember taking part in many National ranking events with courses in this part of the pond.

With the wind increasing to the middle of the top suit, the afternoon’s sailing was really enjoyable. Again, you had to watch for the wind shifts because if you got on the wrong side of a shift, you could lose a significant number of places. There was also opportunities to make up distance by tacking downwind. The other local skipper Tom Milne sailing a TS2 seemed to be enjoying his regatta and posted better results in the afternoon.

So, what caused the delay at the end of the day – during race 14 yours truly crashed into the leeward mark and got wrapped up with its mooring. Having reversed off, it became clear that the mast wasn’t sitting correctly – it turned out that a shroud had broken about 5 cm or so from the deck. So, off I rushed to the car and succeeded in making a jury repair – then put the boat back on the water to check out that everything was working ok only to find that the racing had paused for what seemed like an extraordinary long time. I thought that Dane was being over generous to me. In fact, I had enough time to get a really good sail setting which made the Italiko go very quickly to windward – so I finished the day on a high note. Later, I discovered that the delay had really been to permit David Loomes and Ian Dundas to both sort out some electrical problems. Unfortunately, David had fried his rudder servo and retired from the event after race 13.

Thanks to Dane Ashby for running very effectively his first major Scottish event – it really went well.

Top placings were: