North East Clubs 2008 Late Series Event 2 – Aberdeen – 15th November 2008
Report by John Owens (RO)
The second of this year’s North East Clubs Winter Series was held at Inchgarth Reservoir, Aberdeen. Eight skippers entered including Mel Percival from Brechin, Colin Deakin, Brian Robertson, Ali Law and Bill Reid representing Buchanness with Steve Taylor and John Owens representing Aberdeen. It was also great to welcome Diarmid MacAlister-Hall who sailed during the afternoon for Aberdeen – this being only his second time sailing an IOM.
Conditions varied during the day from completely still and hence having to delay the first race for half an hour, wind filling in from the west so that some skippers changed down to #2’s and eventually the wind dropping as the day drew to an end. By the end of the day, 15 races had been run.
Sandy Forbes volunteered to score and act as line judge and observer. Given the size of the fleet, and with the other skippers’ agreement, the race team of John Owens (OOD) and Steve Taylor (boatman) were able to sail. This arrangement proved successful and had the added benefit of avoiding having a skipper act as an observer in each race which would be the normal practice in a larger fleet. The good sporting spirit in which the event was sailed allowed this flexibility and contributed to the success of the event. The racing took the usual format of ‘two and a break’. The course was a windward mark with a gate at the leeward end, twice around the course except for the final race which was 3 times around.
The usual 20 second starting advantage system was in use for Bill and Diarmid. Bill, sailing Ali’s Topiko, lost the starting advantage after just 5 races. The battle at the front of the fleet was close run with Brian Robertson building on his strong showing at Brechin, it was Ali’s experience that won the day. Well done to both Buchanness skippers. Steve Taylor, competing with the only wooden hull, was third and managed to hold off Bill Reid who was a very credible fourth.
First 3 individual positions were:
- Ali Law – Buchanness
- Brian Robertson – Buchanness
- Steve Taylor – Aberdeen
Final team positions taking the finishing positions of the top 3 skippers from each club (Clubs with less than 3 skippers scored Number of entrants + 1 for each missing skipper):
- Buchanness – places 1, 2, 4 – points 7
- Aberdeen – places 3, 5, 8 – points 16
- Brechin – places 7, dns, dns – points 25