Spring Point Score 9 & 10

PRO Luke Parker’s report:

Drizzly weather and gradient NNE of 10-16 knots greeted the fleet on Saturday. Numbers were a little down with the gun younger sailors away in Victoria and some softer older sailors scared off by the rain. With the wind to the left of a traditional Nor-Easter, and a run-in tide, and no ferries, we elected to set the course deeper in Double Bay than usual. The bonus was much less traffic for the fleet to contend with.

Starts were well- behaved, although the full rigs did test their luck in the second start. They got lucky.

A number of sailors took the opportunity of gusts and some great waves to rehearse capsizing and righting their boats. On the basis that “practice makes perfect”, some members should be getting rather good at it.

From the vantage of the start boat, it seemed upwind tactics were about balancing the tradeoff between flat water and wind strength close to Point Piper. Downwind was all about surfing the waves. And staying upright (refer prevous paragraph).

Results:

On scratch:

In the first race, the Radial race was a tight battle between Martin White and Charlie Byford, and Charlie eventually prevailed. In full rigs, the appropriately named old Fool Craig Sheers (aka 'the flag thief') nailed the start and eventually snuck home ahead of Dave Newman.

In 2nd race, The Troublemaker Andrew Cox (again appropriately named) led home the Radials and Grant Lovelady was in front from start to finish in the full rigs.

On handicap:

A good day for club veterans in the Radials with Peter Collie and Richard George picking up wins. In the full rigs, Maxim won the 1st race and Thomas the 2nd.

Shoutout to Andrew Cox who stumbled upon Connor’s orphaned tiller extension as it floated down the harbour and passed it to the start boat.

Finally, as boats were being packed up there was a general consensus at the club that it was a great day’s racing on the water, so to all the softies scared of a little drizzle……harden up and get out on the water!