Marblehead test event, Manor Park RSC 11th July 2021.

A small band of Marblehead skippers answered Colin Walton’s call to come and have a go at Manor Park RSC before the MYA Marblehead National Championships in the middle of August this year.

I arrived at the club early and the first thing I noticed was the amount of work done around the area during the recent months, the drive into the club has all the potholes filled in and the grassed areas had been tightly mown. Colin also told me that a lot of work had been done in the dinghy club house as well. The event was to be a relaxed affair with a few breaks to allow people to make adjustments etc to their boats and enjoy the coffee and tea. The weather was a gentle Easterly to start with and Darin had quickly adjusted some of the marks to allow for this. The next thing he had to do was swap out a winch so with a little help from Bill G and myself we were able to get him ready for the first race, it was at that time that I got told I was to be the race officer.

Just before the first race I had changed the original course as the wind had gone southerly, whilst this allowed us to use port rounding’s it was not the best beat. Unfortunately, during the first race Hugh then suffered a winch failure and whilst Darin jumped back in the boat to change the start line, I helped Hugh to replace his winch as well, we were able to get him back on the water for the next race.

There was quite a lot of rig adjusting going on as people got to grips with sailing their Marblehead’s for the first time in many months, and it took some time to find the best set-up as can be seen in the results as most people had a wide range of scores to their name by the end of the 12 races.

Bill G had an interesting issue with his sheeting post in so much as the sheeting line had managed to wear a groove into the top of the sheeting post and so in the light wind the line caught in the groove and would not let the rig rotate on the downwind leg, looks like a ptfe sleeve is required as an insert into the top of the post to reduce the friction.

After a break for lunch, we were back on the water for 13:00 and we completed 12 races by 15:15 allowing people to pack away and get home early.

Thanks to the Manor Park RSC members for making us welcome, and to Sandra and Nancy who not only kept the kettle hot but managed to record all the finishes as well.

The final results are here: RM Test Event

Hugh McAdoo will be the PRO at the MYA Marblehead National championships, and we hope to see you all there, so do not forget to get your entry in early which can be done via the MYA online race entry system here: https://mya-uk.org.uk/events/#events/event-details/5f1ea0faefb6b2001594e5cc/