DF95 Mid Wek Handicap

The first day of spring treated us to a sunny day. It was noticeably warmer than the last few weeks. The wind was a gusty North Wester initially of about 12 knots. The choice of A rig was universal but by race 5 a slight increase in wind prompted everyone to change to the B rig. It was a poor choice and everyone changed back to A rig for race 6. At least everyone was consistent in choice throughout the day which made for good racing. The afternoon’s racing was sailed in a dying breeze of less than 8 knots.

Today we welcomed back Jammy Jones from his usual winter migration north. Jammy has enjoyed sailing with clubs in Queensland throughout the winter. What he left behind was his Katun 2 IOM. Jammy was so successful with his sailing of it that a local made him an offer that he could not refuse. He has now has ordered a new Katun 2 which should be delivered early in the new year.

Lisa made good use of a fairly generous handicap today and was consistently on the podium even after the handicap was corrected by our system. Finishing the day on zero points (with discards and bonuses counted) is no mean feat and can only be done with superior sailing.

Ian Hey took out second place with results that included two wins and two second places. Ian has only been sailing a couple of months and today was only his second outing at Risdon Brook so this result shows some great potential. Well sailed Ian!

Third spot on the podium was taken by Matt Grey (three 2nd places and two 4th’s). A couple of times Matt used special powers to get his boat into a respectable finishing position in the last little leg from the gate to the finish line.

Rod Marshall was our PRO today in the absence of Andrew. Extreme thanks to you Rod for making a special effort to do this, and for your efficient management of the day. There is no doubt that the day runs much better when we have a dedicated PRO.

Chris Wood had servo problems in the warm-up scratch races and so did not compete today but stayed to watch and help out. Several skippers became the beneficiaries of some special one-to-one coaching and tuning tips from Chris. (Thanks Chris!)

I did hear a bit of mumbling about a few anomalous handicaps this week. I have checked through the sheets and can assure that the handicaps are being generated entirely correctly according to our system. But, I do agree that some weeks some of the starting handicaps do seem inappropriate. I have some ideas for an alternative system which we might trial later in the month.

Its back to IOM sailing next week - both for Sunday’s scratch sailing at Montrose and next Wednesday’s handicap at the dam.

John S
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NOTE - MBYC will be having their annual working bee cleanup day this coming Saturday from 0900. It wuld be really appreciated if we could get some RBRYC members along to assist for a little while on the day. MBYC have been a fantastic support for us and it would ber great to help pay some of that back with a good turnout to help them prior to the start of their sailing season in a few weeks.