North East Clubs 2006 Early Series Event 3 – Brechin – 9th April 2006

The trend of smaller turnouts continued at the Brechin event with 6 boats entered. School holidays, offshore rotas and the last blasts of winter weather were cited as reasons. The good news was that 2 new participants joined the fleet to partake in their first traveler event – Will Davies from Levenhall sailing a well prepared Italiko and Peter Lowe from Aberdeen sailing the Club TS2. They joined the regular travelers Ali Law and Ian Dundas with Murray Hackney and Jimmy Rogers entered from the local club. It was good to see Jimmy back on the water again with a newly built and nice looking Triple Crown.

Mel Percival officiated as OOD and with the unfortunate north easterly wind direction he had to set a zig-zag upwind leg in order to get a decent beat. Brechin had made up new marks for the event using a design recommended by MYA – the new marks sported flags to help with visibility.

Racing using the handicap start system commenced on No 1 rigs and produced a number of very close finishes between the boats. An increase in wind strength after race 9 caused skippers to change down to No 2 rigs only to see the wind strength come back down. Unfortunately Peter had to retire due to water flooding of his electrics and Murray had battery problems but the others fought on to complete 15 races.

This was an amazingly close event, with the first three positions either decided on discards or tie breakers. Going into the last race Will was just ahead on 21 points and 6 wins, Ali and Ian were tied on 23 points each with Ali having 3 wins and Ian having 5 wins. Unfortunately Will had a sticking jib pushing him to the back and Ali won the race which gave him the regatta by a single point. Will took second on countback, an excellent result for his first away event.

Full results (pdf file)

Final positions were: