Some days racing on the lake we get just lucky. After 6 days of constant drizzle and strong winds, we had a break of 4 hours from 11:30am through to 4:30pm without any rain and with competitive breezes.
The forecast changed greatly from last night to this morning. We were supposed to receive strong breezes up to 30 knots from the South West. The reality was we had top of the A rig range breezes from race 3 onward. There were three boats that arrived with B rigs set up and for most of the race course it was suited but the tree calm effect at the top mark did test even our best skippers.
So it was overcast, 18°C with some glare issues into the sun from the southern end. Quite comfortable however several of us wore rain jackets just waiting for the dark clouds over the Mandurah Estuary to drift in over us. We even put a plan together to move all electronics under the Pagoda should it actually happen.
As mentioned it was the first Wednesday Handicap racing program being 1st July. There were 9 keen skippers that arrived for racing all full of ambition. We spread them out on the magnetic handicap board and started the racing. Straight away our scratch markers jumped out the box and won the race. We then moved them 30 seconds further out for the second race and again our scratch markers won the race. This is the reason ALRS promotes handicap racing so much, we now have a newer set of skippers with growing confidence and skills who now enjoy racing and winning. There were 9 individual winners out of 9 skippers which is a feat that has never been done at our club to my knowledge.
The breeze direction and strength created many channels of action but also areas of calm and picking those zones was critical to passing boats and gaining ground. It was also important to be able to see your sails so you could react when shifts or lulls were affecting your boat. These DF95 boats are all very similar in pace so it is the skippers ability to extract speed and constant motion that won the races.
The score board suggests it was one sided but there were plenty of moments when every skipper held court finding clear air and flying out in front. The margins are very close between 2nd and 6th, less than 5 points between them.
Report by ALRS Commodore Andrew Donkin
Event Results - Top 5
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