DF95 Summer Scratch Round 1

​A very impressive fleet of 17 today at the dam in some trying and fickle conditions. Very light breeze and somewhat variable from most points of hte compass today.

We welcomed a number of visitors today for the sail day. Welcome (again to many of the visitors) to John Penman, Scott Brain and Matt Bugg from the DSS. On behalf of the club, we hope you enjoyed the sailing today.

Nine races were completed today. The first time we featured an "outside-in" gate and I must say that it was pretty good as far as keeping incidents at bay (as far as I managed to see). 

That said, with 17 on the water, that first mark was a bit congested, and after a few races, I pulled out of sailing and became observer for the remainder of the day in order to call those incidents that seemed to be not seen at times. I must say, it did keep me pretty busy and thankyou to every single skipper that was called. Not one example of diessent and everyone went about their penalties pretty much straight away.

It was discussed at our last committee meeting that we may require an observer (likely a rotating one from the fleet) in each race to ensure compliance to the rules and keep incidents to a converstaion level only. This is to ensure the enjoyement of the sail day for all sailors and keep behaviours to the level expected of the club - especially in such a public area.

We must all remember though, racing is a self policing sport, and the onus is on the skipper to do a penalty as soon as possible without the need to be called for it. A few observations on the "observing" but will do that at the end of the results.

I think it was pretty clear to most today in regards to the winner.

Stu Dawes sailed a remarkable day. Advantage of being an observer was that I was able to ahve a good look at all the boats at different points in time, and I did see a few things from Stu's racing. His sails always seemed full of air. So many sailors had periods where the wind moved and luffed them, so they bore off or tacked, only for the wind to follow them or die all together and the boat stalled completely. They were then at the mercy of the wind to then change direction in order to get going again. This hardly happened to Stu all day from what I saw. A superior awareness of the wind at any point in time.

That said, Stu finished with 13 points from the nine races to come out an overwhelming winner on the day.

Second place went to Richard fisher, 8 behind on 21 points.

Lisa Blackwood finished in third, on 24 points.

In Silver fleet - which has been slightly adjusted to elevate one skipper to gold fleet (Sorry John Hall, the disadvantage of doing so well last year ) - John Short came away with the round win on 12 points.
Three points behind was Rod Marshall on 15 points (with a win and second place in the main fleet mind you).
Third place was just two further afield - Peter Sylvester, on 17 points.

From our DSS sailors (one a RBRYC member and the other three visitors for now...), We had John Penman coming in first, with Nick Connor second, Matt Bugg third and Scott Brain in fourth position.

Well done all for a good days sailing.

As mentioned previously, I observed for much of the day today and found a few things that may be worth bringing up for us all.
Communication is key - Coming to a mark that will get congested, it is essential to sort stuff out before incidents happen. Who has right of way and who needs to give room. We need to read the room a bit as we come to the mark. Those higher risk moves will not win out overall and we are much better to "turn off racing" for a few seconds and just get around that mark clean.

Port-Starboard interactions - It was great to see instances such as one that I saw where Mike Hickman (as one example) who was on starboard chose to bear off just a little bit and maintain his momentum  when coming close to a port tacker. Massive advantage by keeping momentum and not having someone crash tack right in front of you, giving crappy air. Sometimes the urge to force someone to tack because you are on starboard tack is just not worth it.

Incidents in general - Yes, a person that was supposed to give way does a penalty when there is contact between boats, but when the boat on the starboard tack (or in the "right") can also be called to do a penalty for not making an attempt to avoid collision when it is seen that the boat in the wrong has not altered course to avoid contact. You can also be called to do a penalty under rule 14.

Luffing another boat - I saw a few instances of luffing another boat. One that seemed quite fine where the windward boat was called with good time as the leeward boat was simply pointing higher and was on their course as such.
There was another that I saw though, where the leeward boat turned up towards the windward boat to try to instigate contact. This instance didn't work as they luffed and lost  pace, subsequently falling behind the boat to windward - but a boat cannot turn into another to instigate contact and must allow the windward boat room to tack should they need to in order to avoid contact.

Coming Up

Wednesday will see IOM Handicap at the dam. Button press at 11am.

Next Sunday is the Australia Day Shield at the Dam, button press at 1pm

Kyle