IOM Mid Week Handicap

A nice Southerly greeted us at the Dam for todays IOM racing - our second ‘Super Wednesday’ for the year. A rigs were the universal choice today and were kept throughout the whole day even though the wind strengthened for the afternoon session and nose dives and round ups proved that we were pushing the limits of this rig. 
The wind was very shifty and frequently a wind change would only last for moments. Often you went about on a big header only to find that a few seconds later the change had reversed itself. 
Dave Woolley had some electrical issues with his boat and did not make the starting line today but generously stayed to do PRO duties for the whole day. Thank you greatly Dave.
The mornings handicap event resulted in a tight scoreboard featuring three tied results. Gary McCarthy won with a very consistent scorecard - nothing worse than 4th after taking the discard. He was just one point ahead of Alan Short who had two race wins to his credit in a six race series. Al finished the day sailing off an impressive 50 second handicap. John Penman completed the podium finishing the morning very strongly with a win and a second in the last two races. Well sailed all!
The idea of a Super Wednesday is to put a bit of variety into the sailing program. Sometimes on these days we will be sailing long distance races. On other occasions, as today, we will have our usual (but shortened) handicap series in the morning and then something a bit different in the afternoon. Today’s afternoon event was short course scratch racing. A ‘gates-both-ends’ course was used. We started between buoys 5 and 6 and raced up to buoys 3 and 4 (three laps). The gates-both-ends feature threw in an extra element of decision making into the racing especially on such a shifty day as the best buoy choice was never clear. The thing that I enjoyed about these races was that you always felt that you were in the hunt and a favourable shift could propel you from the back to the front of the fleet (but just as easily the vice versa could occur).
Honourable mentions go to John Hall and Alan Short. John who took out race #3 said that he could not remember the last time that he won a scratch race. And Al’s win in race #4 was his first ever scratch race win and he did it after returning from an OCS start! Congratulations to you both.
The winner’s dais looked a bit similar to the mornings event with Gary McCarthy taking out the day again with the most consistent scorecard (all podiums!). Phil Jackman snuck in for second place with impressive results for an older boat in a scratch event. John Penman again took third overall and was always at the head of the field in the afternoons races. So congratulations John, Phil and Gary.


Coming up:

Saturday: IOM CLassics at Risdon Brook. Gates open around 1000 once Park Run has concluded
Sunday: IOM Scratch racing at Montrose. 1:00 button press 
Next Wednesday: DF95 handicap racing at Risdon Brook Dam. 10:30 button press


Shorty