North East Clubs 2007 Early Series Event 3 – Buchaness – 17th March 2007

10 Skippers from the Brechin, Aberdeen and Buchanness clubs attended the last event of the Early 2007 Winter Series held at Peterhead.

Although there was a strong wind forecast, the event started in the top end of Rig 1 conditions. Colin Brown and his race team of Alistair Struthers and Ian Thompson were able to set a long triangle/sausage course into the southerly wind. Despite the length of the legs there were few options on the course to take and those that tried often lost out. A light rain added to the rigours of the day but the warmer than seasonal air temperature and the close racing kept spirits up.

Six races were held in the period up to lunchtime with Colin Deacon winning 2 with his TS2 and John Owens getting 1 showing that the handicapping system was working. However it was Ali Law with his Topiko that was showing great consistency with 3 firsts, a second and two thirds to post a handsome lead before lunch.

At lunch time the wind veered to the west and increased rapidly and the sky cleared as forecast by Heather Reid on BBC Scotland. A couple of skippers tried out Rig 2 in the stronger wind but were soon forced to change down and the whole fleet resumed on Rig 3 for the afternoon.

There was some pretty hectic sailing in the strong wind with the boats ‘fleeing’ downwind and having difficulties to tack upwind. As the day wore on a couple of boats were forced to withdraw with technical failures. By 3.30 15 races had been completed and it was no surprise that Ali Law, who had continued his strong run, finished a worthy winner well ahead of Ian Dundas who pulled through to second in the stronger afternoon conditions. The next three places were separated by only 2 points with Steve Taylor just pipping Colin Deakin and John Owens for third place. Steve was sailing his wooden Swallow which has been going quicker at each event and today was very impressive downwind.

Overall results for the day were:

Full results (pdf file)