North East Clubs 2010 Early Series Event 1 – Buchanness – 16th January 2010

Report by Ian Dundas    Results (pdf file)

Due to the extremely bad weather forecast for the 15th January the event was postponed, which was the correct call because Saturday had high winds and heavy rain. It was rescheduled for Sunday 16th.

Sunday was exactly the opposite from Saturday with light s/w winds and bright warm sunshine at times you could be forgiven for thinking that it was a summer event.

Race officer Ali Law – who would also be sailing, welcomed the skippers to the event and all agreed there would be no need for a by boat, this would allow all to sail. The course to be sailed was a long windward – leeward course with a spreader / jib mark opposite the weather mark. With the steady southwest wind it appeared ideal conditions but the skippers soon found out there was holes in the wind which proved to be quite challenging and large gains could be made by tacking over to the bank side of the course at the right time, once you were on the downwind leg the same applied you had to search out the streamers of wind and gains could be made if judged correctly

It was good to welcome back from sailing full size dinghies (Tazers) Colin Tait with his – pristine condition – Bantock Italiko which showed through out the day that it had the pace to win races but unfortunately Colin has not sailed the yacht since early last year.

Six yachts lined up for the first race (each skipper would take a turn as line judge) the first race was sailed and won by out of form Ali Law. Second was – in form and the man to beat – Steve Taylor and these two battled it out all day. Steve sailed very well in the morning with Ali coming good in the afternoon but he left his charge too late. Ian Dundas was a favourite to win but the excellent form of the recent weeks deserted him and his best effort was one second place. John Owens sailed his best regatta to date and had wins in races five and eight (I would award him the man of the match). Brian Robertson had flashes of inspiration and was pretty consistent but didn’t do enough over the day being beaten into fifth place by one point. Ali law and Colin Tate both experienced gear failure during the regatta but were able to make repairs and continue sailing. Racing finished up at 3pm.

The final individual positions were:

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):