IOM Summer Series Round 2

What a perfect day today.

For starters, a small group turned up a bit early and removed our permanent buoys from the sail area and installed the new "Championship Buoys" for use over the next few weeks. The idea being a good dress rehersal for the upcoming National Championships.

Our course was set a bit different today, and we plan to use the same throughout the Champs. A start line alongside the lee gate consisting of three buoys. Two were around 25m apart for the start line, with one buoy closer to shore about 5m away from one of the start buoys, which made up the leeward gate. That allowed for the maximum available first beat to the windward mark and offset mark in order to maximise the space available to separate the fleet prior to rounding that first mark. We completed two of these laps and closed out to a dedicated finish line about half way up the beat.

At 10am, when we started prepping, the river was glassed out, but by 1pm start, all boats had selected their B rigs for the day, which ended up being rather over-powered by the close of the days sailing.

Fifteen sailors fronted today, with both Stu and myself electing to not sail and help out with buoy setting and RO duties.

Unfortunately, a new skipper, Rowan, started the first race but suffered a winch failure and couldn't contest the remainer of the day. He will be back, being quite keen on contesting the Nationals as a newly minted RBRYC member. Rowan comes from a decorated sailing background, having just competed in the SB20 World Championships and also heavily involved in foiling Moths.

We also welcomed Lester Pearson, who has come for the Nationals from NSW, and has made a bit of a holiday of it and will be spending some time fishing around the state as well. Lester will be sailing in the A Class and IOM Class Championships.

From the get go today, Mat Gray showed he has lost nothing at all with his sailing. Broke out in the first race and showed a clean set of heels throughout most of the day. Great to see you back on the water Mat, and looking forward to you hopefully being OK for the IOM Nationals.

The sailing today was quite fast in the upper end of B rig conditions. The wonderful sea breeze giving us absolute champagne conditions throughout. Very little to no noise from the skippers today, and the RO's thank everyone for their behaviour on the water.

As mentioned, by the end of the 11 races today, Mat Gray had blasted away to a resounding round win, on 11 points. He has to drop two second places...... Top effort Mat.

Second place today went to Michael Hickman on 24 points. Also very well sailed today.

Third place today went to Lisa Blackwood on 31 points.

Clearly today was dominated by the top four skippers, all having a very consistent day out.

In Silver Fleet,  we had Jammy Jones taking the round out on 19 points. Welcome back to club racing Jammy, and we hope you enjoyed it anf want to sail much more often with us.

Second place, just two behind, was Ian Hey on 21 points, with John Short a further two behind on 23 points.

Thanks today to our RO's Les and Stuart for their work on setting courses, managaing that start line and calling over the finishing boats. Great job guys.

Coming up

This coming Wednesday will be Mid Week DF95 Handicap at the dam, button press at 1pm.

Next Sunday will be A Class Scratch at Montrose, button press at 1pm as well as preparations for the Nationals. Come along and help out if you can for the preparations. We have a committee meeting tomorrow night to conclude (hopefully) all of our committee preparations and organising of volunteers to roles etc. If you have yet to offer assistance but feel you would like to, please get in touch with us as soon as possible so we can add you to the list and give an allocation to roles/tasks.

Kyle