IOM Summer Scratch Round 1

What a day on the water today for the start of the 2026 season.

Light winds presented early. ESE breeze between 4 and 10 knots for much of the sailing session.

14 skippers turned up for the day - unfortunately, I had some winch issues (anyone know somebody that fixes them......), so carried out PRO duties for the day instead. Such is life.

Thanks to Ted Stevens and Murray Willis, for travelling to sail today. Welcome also to John Penman - who sailed from my understanding - his first Sunday scratch day. Hope you enjoyed it.

Away on time at 1pm, with a single race and then break, followed by stanza's of three races and a break.

Twelve races completed by the end of the day, with three courses used, trying to get the start line as evenly spread as possible.

Some interesting observations today while watching.

As much as you bias the outer mark to be the favoured end, it is interesting to see how many boats still try to hit the start off the closer in start mark. Only changed after Gary got an absolute bolter from 3/4 up the start line and then they started to spread a bit more.

A few occasions, sailors decided to sail against anopther yacht to try to push an advantage, however, in every instance, the result ended up being the fleet gained the advantage, and not the two skippers that had embraced a yacht vs yacht duel.

As usual, close quarters sailing - especially at the marks - only ended up in pain, whereas the skippers in clear air always benefited by not pushing for that 1% gain that often had a big penalty if it went wrong.

That said, almost every penalty was done without being called, and the excellent overall behaviour made it a pleasure to be the PRO for the day. Thankyou to all sailors for keeping things in very good spirits.

Of note, we had 6 skippers taking a win today, one of them a Silver Fleet skipper (that really was a fantastic race Andrew). That said, seocnd place didn't register a win on the day, but was very consistent throughout the day.

Winner today, on 21 points was Lisa Blackwood.
Second place, on 27, was Gary McCarthy
Third place was Rod Jackman, on 35 points.

In Silver Fleet, Ted Stevens took out the day witrh 16 points.
Andrew Wardrop took out second on 20 points.
John Penman (Welcome to Sunday Sailing John) took third, just one point adrift on 21 Points.

Coming up

Wednesday is the start of Mid Week Handicap for the year, with the DF95's taking centre stage at the NEW START TIME of 1030.

Next Sunday is RM Scratch at Montrose, starting at 1300,

Kyle