Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club

Yep, folk must be away on their holidays 'cos it was a really nice evening and yet a rather low turnout. Shame. Anyway, yes, nice westerly force 2ish breeze, warm, some dark clouds about bit no rain on the race. Windiest lap was probably the last one which makes a nice change.

Course. A medium length beat, a close reach, a longish run, another medium length beat and medium length and very deep reach back to the start. Hard work for the spinnaker crews... 

Well contested start for the slow fleet. I thought a port end start might be on, but the pack arrived at the port end too early for it to come off. Good close racing round the first lap, the two Visions were having a bit of a battle for instance, and I recall reminding a leeward asymettric boat that even if I am windward boat I can't alter course to keep clear of him if there's a starboard Laser just on my port side: we were both sailing the same angle, but the Laser was by the lee...

Course was always going to be a bit of a singlehander special, the slower asymettric boats especially tending to struggle down the long deep legs, although Mike Jones' Vision found some speed from somewhere on the second lap.

Results are here. Another win for Gareth, which gives him the series unless he does something really spectacularly silly like getting excluded for bad behaviour. Truth is he probably had enough wins after the 6th July. Kevin Pearson took another 2nd place in the Laser, his 5th of the series, and is currently counting all 2nds apart from a single first. Richard Barker was third in his Phantom, and Andy Barnett and Jo 4th in the RS200, pretty fair on what was not an RS200 course, and they are now 3rd in the series. The Personal handicap is very close, but there's not really a notable improver dominating the field as has happened in other years. Disappointing that.

Some Admin.

Please, please please make sure you get race cards in with the right names, and race teams, please make sure you fill in the results sheets with all the right names. Peter Curtis isn't going to be available to do Sunday results, so this is especially important, but even on the Wednesday there are too many missing names. Its also important you put the duty team and their boats on the race sheet, otherwise they may not get their average points.

We could do with a volunteer to take over weekend race results from Peter Curtis. We use a dedicated application which is straightforward and quick to use once you have the idiosyncracies of race scoring worked out, and I'm sure our Sailing Committee would be delighted to have a volunteer or two. Talk to Gareth. We need, in my opinion, more of the younger sailors involved in club management in general. It could be argued that it looks good on the CV if you're 22 or something and have been a responsible sports club officer already.

Round the Island this Saturday, but the [redacted] cycling is on Sunday so no formal sailing. I'm going to be away and in any case the Canoe is off the water, so the "prestige" of being fastest boat round the reservoir in the RTI is definitely available. I should have thought 400s, Phantoms, 300s, even the Aero 9 might be in with a chance, and of course if its breezy a 29er could easily get round quickest. Lets see... Its more fun than you'd think just going for it round the circle of marks.