DF95 Handicap Racing held Wed 23 Sept 2026

Almost perfect weather on the lake for DF95 racing. There was a healthy 5 - 8 knot breeze mostly from the west which offered brisk downwind runs and some good tight-hauled tacking fun. There were still holes from the trees at the top marks to mess with any good plans and to assist the "lucky" ones that picked the shifts.  Warm 24°C sunshine without a cloud in the sky. It attracted 12 boats to the course for friendly battle.

 

ALRS Handicap system shook the skippers to perform and if you make errors like touching buoys or turning before the buoy, it costs you greatly.  Especially when the earlier starting skippers had good clear breezes and were clear to go fast. It is a treat to see these guys perform well when they are not looking around for boats squeezing them on the start or up at the bottleneck of the first top mark rounding.

 

Today racing was very clean and spread out with numerous close finishes and therefore movement of skippers up and down the handicap board.  Eight of the skippers within the fleet had an individual race victory which is just gold. Everyone had at least a podium finish which affects your handicap for the next race. This is so good for the fleet that is improving all the time.

 

Congratulations to the POKER Shark (name of his boat) Mitch Benson for the consistency win over the regatta and to Greame Elliott and Greg Renyolds for the minor placing wins.  They all raced hard from the outer marker position starting last, passing the fleet in most races. Well done boys!