An action-packed weekend despite the wind (and rain)!
Published 09:13 on 18 May 2022
As the weekend approached, we were worrying that there might be no wind on Saturday and too much on Sunday. In the event the forecasters got both days wrong as you can read below.
Saturday - a fantastic morning and a muddy afternoon!
The tide time meant this was a particularly early start - both for those sailing in our Early Points Race 4 (start time 10am) and for the Rusty Sailors too. However, helped no doubt by the beautiful sunny weather, a good band of sailors assembled at the Club Hut at 08.30 to find out whether or not the wind would co-operate. Right on cue, under the watchful eye of Race Officer Steve Marks, the Club Flag showed a light southerly sea breeze arriving which enabled a full morning's sailing to be enjoyed by the 5 boats in Class 1, the 3 in Class 2 and our 7 Rusty Sailors. Many thanks to our Race Team of Steve & Sue Marks, Tom & Liz Richardson, and Catherine Melville; also to Ivan Western assisted by nephew Finn Western for supervising the Rusty Sailors.
In Class 1 Peter McKerchar maintained his 100% record of straight wins, once again enjoying the light wind conditions in his Lightning. Jem & Nancy Western's 2000 was 2nd, just 19 seconds ahead of Kevan Watkins's Laser Radial, whose gamble to find more wind further out in the channel didn't pay off against the strong spring tide. 3 scows contested the Class 2 race with Ann Carnegie and crew Sue Taylor coming home first. In 2nd place was Jac Mavity who narrowly beat her husband (and our Commodore) reversing the result from the previous race.
With little other boat traffic in the early morning and favourable winds in the Harbour Entrance, Ivan and Finn decided to take the Rusty Sailors on a destination sail across to Hayling Island Sailing Club where refreshments were enjoyed. There was some excitement when a fleet of what looked like 100 Oppies set sail just as they were arriving but our sailors took this in their stride.
The only mishap in the morning was the loss of the mooring tackle for Rooster, one of the Club's moveable marks. So at dead low water Kevan Watkins and Jem & Finn Western set out across the mud off Rookwood to see if the anchor, rope and chain could be found. After struggling across the large area of exposed and exceptionally sticky mud, the anchor was finally spotted and returned!
Sunday - our juniors show the way
In contrast to the day before, our concern here was the anticipated wind gusts of Force 5 or possibly more on a day when we would have Oppie & Topper Club and several junior Toppers competing in the 3 programmed Sprints races (Nos. 4, 5 & 6 in the series). The data from Cambermet below shows the problem faced by those running these events. Right up until 0940 the wind was rising as forecast to Force 4-5 only to fall back to almost nothing when what turned out to be prolonged and heavy rain arrived. Despite this, 16 boats were able to race (of which 9 were juniors) and Oppie Club went ahead too.
The wind not only rose and fell throughout the 3 sprint races, it changed directions too which made life interesting for sailors as well as the Race Team. In the first race of the day 2 juniors, Tate Kump (1st) and Charlie Benda (2nd) beat Kevan Watkins into 3rd place. They demonstrated this wasn't a fluke by repeating the feat in the next race although this time Charlie was 8 seconds ahead of Tate. Kevan finally salvaged some respect for the adults when he took 1st place in the last race although once again Tate and Charlie were close behind in 2nd and 3rd places. Well done to everyone who braved the rain and many thanks to our Race Officers Peter McKerchar and Jane Price, our safety crew of Steve & Tom Simons, and to Finn Western who supported the junior Topper fleet.
Despite the rain and challenging winds Anna Turner assisted by George Benda and Barnaby McCreery reported lots of smiles among the OTC juniors who are pictured above taking a break from the elements in the bird hide at Ellanore.
The enthusiasm and expertise shown by all who took part in our events last Sunday bode well for the Club's future. Well done all!
Last updated 11:01 on 28 March 2024