IOM Scratch Summer Series Round 4

​A wild, windy day today for our return to Montrose Bay Yacht Club to recommence the 2023 Summer program.

Ten skippers turned up, with 9 hitting the water - one has yet to build his C rig and wisely chose not to test his yacht out in the conditions. That said, five skippers used their C rigs for the first time on their new to newish yachts, and a great test it was.

But first, we joined with our friends at MBYC to celebrate the opening of the yacht club's 2023/24 season, with a BBQ and speech by Commodore Glenn Hardwick. Unfortunately the wind conditions were not conductive to dinghy sailing at all, and they will commence their season next week.

Back to RC sailing, and we got 9 races completed in the end. A spell in the middle for a rescue, but otherwise some great back to back races - really testing out the "C's".

Interestingly, some really strong tidal flow came through, making sailing to the finish line difficult to say the least, as well as the Mona Roma Ferry "Tsunami" making an apprearance on multiple occasions.

Five of the nine skippers scored wins today, and it was also great to see Andrew Price mixing it up with the others, scoring some really credible results as well as not being far off in many other races as well.

Unfortunately, there was some attrition towards the end of the day, but not too unexpected given the conditions.

Very tight at the end of the day, with first and second tied up, as well as 3rd and 4th.
Michael Hickman came away with the round win on 16 points with three race wins being just enough to edge out Mat Gray in second, same points but two race wins.
Third was Kyle Stewart on 22 points, edging out Lisa Blackwood also on countback, with Kyle securing one race win.

On Handicap, Kyle Stewart took out first place with 4 net points (that hurt the handicap), with Andrew Price in second with 2 net points and Michael Hickman taking 3rd with 1 net point.

Big thanks - as always - to Les Hanson for running the day for us today, and to Stu Dawes for hanging aound to observe for us after his day was finished early.

Coming up

DF95 Mid Week Handicap on Wednesday at the dam, button press at 11am as usual.

Next Sunday is the IOM Southern Championship at MBYC. If you have yet to enter but intend on doing so, please get the entries in as soon as possibe.

Kyle