Woodspring MSC South West District IOM Series Round 2 15th March 2026 – Report and Results

A sunny dry day with a brisk Southerly breeze welcomed twenty-two skippers to the second round of this series.

The wind direction meant that a course could be set along the long edge of the lake adjacent to the road, with the windward mark and wing mark at the club house end, a similar arrangement at the leeward end, and the finish near the end of the beat. After a couple of races the wind changed slightly requiring the start line to be changed, and the leeward marks changed to a gate. The wind then remained reasonably consistent, albeit gusty, most of the day, before going more South Westerly in the final races.

Unfortunately the sunniness and the moderate breeze didn’t last long, and shortly after the B fleet heat (all on A rigs) started, the breeze increased, the gusts rolled in, and many struggled with the downwind leg, and even rounding the leeward mark.

Lesson learnt, there was a delay to allow the A fleet to change to B rig, and this remained the preferred choice all day, apart from Race 4 where Mike Cooke reacted to a slight lull in the wind and used A rig to good effect, and the final race of the day when Craig Richards (having won the event) tried the C rig, but finished sixth proving that B rig was the one to be on.

Craig was fairly dominate all day finishing in the first two in six of his nine races, and overall was clear of Tony Edwards in second, and Jonathan Kneale third. All these skippers coping well in the conditions, particularly downwind where technique meant they suffered fewer nose dives compared with the rest of the fleet.

The event was testament to the resilience of the RC sailing community, despite the unpleasant condition the majority stayed until the end, just a few forced out with rig failures.

Final comment: we had a problem with HMS malfunctioning late in the day, the “sort” function and ability to create summary sheets ceased functioning. When attempting these functions an error message appeared. Reloading the file didn’t help, the only option was to go to an earlier version of the file and re-enter race results. This reinforces the need to save a fresh version of the file after every round of races. Hopefully this could help users avoid a similar problem.

Thanks to the race team: Alan Barnstable, Min Edwards, Brett Wilson, Bob Flook, Simon Evans, and Sue Conner.

SWD IOM Round 2 Results