North East Clubs 2008 Late Series Event 3 – Buchanness – 13th December 2008
Report by Ali Law
Seven skippers entered the third and last event of the late 2008 North East Clubs Winter Series at Buchanness. Three of the regular attendees called off due to winter ailments or perhaps understandably because of the severe weather warning! (They turned out to be the three wise men.) In addition to individual scoring, this winter series was being run along the lines of team racing with the three best scores from each club counting towards a club score.
Colin Brown from the local club presided as Race Officer and Observer ably assisted by Tony who was the finishing line judge and scorer. This arrangement worked extremely well with the added bonus that there was no need to draw on skippers from the fleet to act as observers.
The forecast for the day was to be S/E gusting above 30 mph with heavy rain and for once the Met Office got it just about correct although, at the start the day, the wind was well below the forecast. Sailing followed a large triangular course, twice round, finishing on a beat. The first four races were run with number 1 rig but at the start of the fifth race the wind suddenly increased and the rain began to pour down. Only three boats managed to finish and skippers quickly changed down to number 3 rigs and stayed with this rig to the end. The day continued with rain, strong wind and large waves at the leeward end of the course and a total of 12 races were sailed.
In the first race Ali Law got well away from the fleet but on approach to the first windward mark he misjudged the lay line and collided with the mark and stayed hung up on it till the end of the race. Ian Dundas went on to win the race. This was the start of a trend through till lunch although as the wind increased Colin Deakin came to the front and won a race. After the lunch break Steve Taylor was the front runner with his wooden Zig Zag and he won 5 of the 6 afternoon races. The other race win went to Ali Law who was fairing better than in the morning.
Over the day Ian sailed a steady regatta and came out in front to win by a small margin from Steve. Colin McGinnis added to his experience of sailing in large waves and high winds and turned in a fourth place two points behind Colin Deakin who also continues to make solid progress in competition. Shaky also started well with his refurbished Stealth but succumbed to the weather conditions. Sandy Forbes sailed in his first inter club regatta and did very well considering the horrendous conditions but alas he also retired after race four (we were mad to continue).
The event was sailed in a sportsmanship manner and considering the awful conditions the skippers and race committee had to endure and all ran out winners.
First 3 individual positions were:
- Ian Dundas – Aberdeen
- Steve Taylor – Aberdeen
- Colin Deacon – Buchanness
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):
- Aberdeen – places 1, 2, dns – points 11
- Buchanness – places 3, 5, 6 – points 14
- Brechin – places 4, dns, dns – points 20