IOM Mid Week Handicap

It was good to get back to some handicap racing today after a couple of cancellations to our program. Even today the forecast didn’t look great which might have accounted for the fact that we only had 10 starters. Still there was some great racing of IOMs on the dam today.
 
Rod Marshall and Phil Jackman took on PRO duties and did a great job keeping the racing happening. Willy Weather did get it a bit wrong by forecasting strong winds early easing throughout the day. In fact some of the earlier races were fairly calm - or at least had some very calm patches in them, and the later races very windy and we all found that we were overpowered with our A-rigs.
 
Trout called the racing to an early close after race 9 with the wind still strengthening. It was a good call too as there was some heavy rain on the way home.
 
I do have to mention race #6 which featured a Rose Bay High trifecta with old boys Bodge, myself and Al filling the podium. Swelling with pride I almost burst out a chorus of the school song but luckily for all I didn’t!
 
I managed third spot today in a welcome return to some form. Gary McCarthy, fresh from competing in the world titles came second. It was John Penman who won the day. Gary and John each had three race wins which is pretty hard to compete against and in fact the podium place getters accounted for 8 of the 9 race wins today. Congratulations Gary and John.
 
Seeing that we are at the halfway point of our Handicap Shield season with 6 events completed I thought that it might be a good idea to publish the progressive standings. The results table below allows for 1 discard.) Peter Sylvester, David Woolley and Ian Hey have a handy buffer but a little further down the table it gets very close with a 4 way tie and 8 skippers (4th to 11th) separated by just 5 points.
 
So good to be sailing again!
 
Coming Up:
 
Saturday: IOM Classics Day at Risdon Brook Dam. 10:30 Button press
Sunday: DF 65 and DF95 scratch racing at Risdon Brook Dam 10:00 Button press
Next Wednesday: IOM handicap racing at Risdon Brook Dam. 10:30 Button press
 
Shorty