DF65 handicap racing from 2nd Sep

How do you make sailing in the north of Scotland in drizzle sound exciting????  BUT it was! A good westerly breeze blowing from 3 to 10 knots swirled around the lake offering huge passing lanes and plenty of dangerous calm holes. So normal ALRS sailing but with a constant light haze of tiny droplets that you cannot call rain. More like a mist all afternoon. To many it would be like the highland mists. The rain did eventually open up after we finished and had set up camp in the long pagoda at the south end of the lake. After a few sherbets in the mens shed, many decided it was cold enough to head home.

 

There were 7 brave skippers head on out to enjoy some fun sailing in good winds. We completed 12 races and had two good breaks during the afternoon. Being a handicap day the board was spread out and the game of checkers began. You win one and get sent out 30 seconds then the next skippers wins one and he gets sent out 30 seconds. After 12 races the spread of skippers was nearly exactly the same as the starting spread.  The top 5 skippers were bunched together in most races chasing down whomever had the biggest starting advantage. Every skipper had an individual race win with the top 4 each scoring two wins each. The system works when the spread is bigger and fairer.  It also means there are boats sailing in clear air all the way over the course, so everyone is going flat-out all the time. If you make an error you need to do your penalty turn quickly or the fleet will leave you way behind. The mist made rounding buoys extra difficult especially if you were wearing glasses. There were way too many bottom marks clipped as we all rounded. On the course there were very few contacts and at the starts which shows the improvement in the fleet.

Poor Phil was fighting the #257 boat a lot in the early races. After race 8 he asked for some help and the results show he flew around after a quick tuning of his rig. It was also encouraging to see the skills of covering being done well when leading boats broke away and had the upper hand over the chasing pack.

 

Our winner today was Graeme Elliott on 27 points with Jason Poutsma in second and Mark Lovelady in third.

 

I will mention Kevs handicap board now goes out to 200 sec and a few of us nearly made it to the 150 mark. It's one hell of a chase from that far back.