IOM Summer Scratch Round 5

​A cool day for us today, but at least we had a great breeze. A wonderful 10-15 knot southerly blowing all afternoon for us, settuing up for some great B rig conditions.

Ten sailors made it along today. Great to see Chris along, getting in some important tuning practice for the upcoming states in two weeks time (entries close next week).

Some excellent close sailing throughout, and to be honest, a lot of the scores don't do the sailing enough justice, with some finishes having 6 over the line within 5 seconds.

On-course behaviour was fantastic today. Only brought up following my positive experience of the same over in SA at the Marblehead Nationals. No "playing games" on the start line hunting boats up, courteous passing on the beats, everything looked respectful at the buoy roundings. A wise man said to me that a fast boat is not always the right boat, but the one that is not involved in incidents, so avoiding them at pretty much any cost is always faster than arguing about a collision - something I have thought about a lot the last little while.....

Rod's new Rockstar looked the goods and just needs a few weeks of fine tuning to get things set just nicely. Andrew was getting more comfortable with his V10, enjoying a few races towards the end of the day. A couple more tweaks to the rigs to make sure bowsies stay nice and tight and consistency will increase there for sure.

It was great to see multiple people lending a had to Andrew when he needed a hand with a few issues today as well in order to get him back on the water. Help like that for the newer guys will always have them coming back keen to sail next week and is the culture we want to continue to nourish.

Anyway, back to results, and Mat came out the winner today on 15 points.

Just two points behind in second was Michael, with Chris and Rod J tied in third on 20, Chris taking the third on countback. Great close results there.

On handicap, Chris and John tied in first on two net points, with Mat and Rod M tied in third spot. Well done to all.

As always, big thanks to Les for his help as Pro today.

Wednesday is IOM Mid Week Handicap at the dam, button press at 11am.

Kyle