Well, well. This series is likely to be the closest for years... Anyway, arriving at the top of the steps up the bank saw one greeted with a South westerly and a times plenty of white horses. Yes, breeze on again... I would guess that much of the time it was pushing Force 5, and coming in stronger and weaker bands. Hardly a cloud in the sky too and hot with it. Good stuff.

It was quite an entertaining evening as regards to minor and damage/injury free mishaps too... I usually anonymise these before mentioning them, but for this report I've been strongly pressured not to report one of them at all, and so it seems unfair to mention the others either... Maybe I should just recommend some less conventional potential reading matter for sailors...

    * Life of Pyrrhus, Plutarch of Chaeronea
    * Zen and the Art of ToestrapMotorcycle Maintenance , Robert Pirsig
    * Mary Poppins, by PL Travers
I'd better stop before I get into trouble:-)

The course was beat, closeish reach, run, shorter beat, shortish broad reach to finish, so two hoists and drops per lap to keep the spinnaker boat forward hands fit and healthy/tired and weary [delete as applicable]. There were a couple of different faces/boats out for the race too - Mike Storey had his son and the National 12 available, always a very capable combination, and Ben Elvin was out with a Laser Radial, which looked to be a very useful choice in the conditions...  With one of the top three contenders on the bank running the racing I don't know how welcome other potential race winners were to the two out on the water, because I suspect that who gets the race wins from the remaining races will be critical to the series destination...

Well, the National was flying. They took an early lead, and continued to build on it: their light crew weight proving to be no problem at all. Ben Elvin's Radial was with and even ahead of full rig Lasers for most of the race too: Rob Sumner and Kevin Pearson being the leaders.  Graham Potter didn't have the best of first laps in the Albacore, but thereafter was, 12 excepted, leading amongst the slow fleet, whilst Garthe Griffiths took a good lead among the Solos in what is amongst his best conditions. Mike Curtis lead through the fast fleet, but his progress was punctuated for a while...

Full results are here. Mike Storey won, which brings him right in contention for the battle for third place. Ben Elvin was easily second, and Gareth Griffiths took third from Rob Sumner, with Kevin Pearson 5th and Mike Curtis 6th. That means all of the previous top 6, except for Carl Mayhew on the bank, ended up with probable discards and damage to their points average... "Mesdames et Messieurs, faites vos jeux"...

From a series point of view this all gets very complicated. Its best 6 to count at the moment, and I think best 7 if we sail 1 or 2 more races, and best 8 if we sail 3 more. All the top 3 have two duties complete, and similar points. Now my interpretation, which could be wrong, is that Carl currently has a better 8 results than Gareth, who almost certainly can't sail again, but if Carl gets a 4th or 5th (or worse an OCS) then Gareth slips ahead again with superior average points. On the other hand if Carl sits it out then Mike Curtis will overtake him if the RS400 can pick up a 1 and a 2 in the last three races. I don't believe any of them can sail all three races, so you could argue that top results will be easier, but the joker in that situation is the 12: I presume that Alex Storey is now available to sail  forward hand for the old man because we are into school holiday season, so getting a race win suddenly got a lot harder for the others...

Now the personal handicap... Ian Hamilton continued his run with a 6th straight win, making them very nearly unassailable in the series - provided that is they do/have done a duty. I don't have them down as taking their turn in the race team, so you need to sign yourself up or let me know when you took your turn: no duty: no results... One thing for sure though: that personal handicap will be a lot more challenging next season guys! Alasdair MacLean, I think taking things easy after his knee operation is currently second, but Paul Playle and Clare James are very much in the hunt for the runner up spot.

Breeze on... The look on various folks' faces as they climbed up the steps, the wind hit their faces, and they looked on a wave-blackened lake with white crests, told its own story. Another similarly unsettling story was told by heaps, banks, even mountains of low cumulus scudding across the sky...

Yes, it was going to be windy, it was going to be shifty and it was going to be gusty. The clubhouse anenometer was showing Force 5, rapid onslaught gusts up to force 6, and perhaps even more disturbing, sudden drops down to F1 or 2 for a few seconds as eddies in the wind went past.

The result was a big queue to rig boats on the clubhouse jetty rather than on the bank as normal, but nearly everyone who wanted to sail managed to get on the water in time. Others augmented the safety boat team...

In the end the wind diminished some during the race, but there were always big gusts in the background. The course was a slightly fiddly affair, beat, reach, run, reach, but then a shorter beat to X in the middle of the reservoir, a broadish reach back down to 9, near the clubhouse and a gybe and very short reach back to the start. This last, giving lots of control problems in a very confined area with no room to leeward was perhaps not universally liked: I don't suppose the forward hands on spinnaker boats relished all the work of extra kite hoists in such conditions either...

Well, who looked good... The fleets split up fairly early, but Clare James, in her Laser with radial rig, didn't look bad in the early strong wind, but lost out when it went lighter. Mike Storey's EPS was snapping at Mike Curtis' RS 400 heels for much of the race, but again lost out a bit when the breeze reduced. The RS400 and 200s were going well at times, but the X9F combination caused all sorts of problems, it was never clear whether it was better to try and hang on to the kite after a gybe at 9 for 10 seconds or so and struggle to make X or drop before 9... Personally I might have tried a gybe drop at 9 to hold on to the kite right to the mark, but I wasn't out there... and it would have been nasty if a gust hit at the wrong moment... An adequate amount of testing of the water went on... Gareth Griffiths, predictably relishing the conditions in his Solo, managed a brief splash and go at one stage which hardly delayed his passage... Rob Pettit seemed comfortably the fastest of the Lasers out there, but perhaps not entirely comfortable himself at times... One Laser sailor, having had a particularly awkward gust at the gybe at 9, ended up being towed by his boat with his head in the water until he managed to disentangle himself and climb back on the boat without actually capsizing... of course this would have to be after the *last* gybe approaching the finish...

So results... Gareth took the race, his third win in the series, and Mike Storey was second. Carl Mayhew, in a 200, and Rob Pettit dead heated for third, and 3.5 points.  That half point could make a lot of difference... %th went to Paul Playle in a Solo, and 6th to John Smith in a Laser. In the personal handicap Ian Hamilton won again... This is really in many ways an improver's series, and they have come on in leaps and bounds since the winter: they certainly won't be getting band 5 again! Second was new member C Cavallari in a club Solo, followed by Clare James, Paul Playle, John Smith and Mike Storey. Full results are here.

Series wise:

Well, game on in the Scratch Series: with Gareth on 8.8 points, Cal on 8.9 and Mike Curtis on 9 points its likely to go down to the wire. Unfortunately, it being August, family holidays may come into play: Gareth, for instance, can only do one more race and I think Mike and Carl have at least one week away too. At the moment Gareth, Carl and Mike all have three wins and three seconds, plus other results incluing two average points for duties for Mike and Gareth, and one for Carl (presumably with another to come). Unless we have a race abandoned in the last 4 it will be 8 races to count. The average points bring an especial subtlety into things, because discards and DNFs count for the average, but DNC does not: a gear failure could be fatal! Mike has a 7th and 8th, so the worst average *at the moment*, the other two having two 3rds (Gareth) and one 3.5 (Carl). The person who gets the most wins in the last 4 races will almost certainly win the series, but if they tie on wins then a "down the pan" could be a nightmare. Mathematically Kevin Pearson is not out of things either, but its not proving easy for Lasers to pick up wins this year.

The Personal Series is open too, rather wider in fact. There's a slight complication in that we have to decide what band to allocate to S. Cavallari: as a new member we do not, of course, have any past results. I initially put him down as band 5, but his results to date suggest that band 3 will be nearer the mark, and with current scoring he has a 1st and a 2nd: affecting others places: we probably need to rethink this. I don't like retrospective scoring, but in this sort of case there is little choice. At the moment Alasdair Maclean still just heads Ian Hamilton, but Ian has only been beaten (provisionally) by C.J. Cavallari in recent weeks, and will take a lot of stopping. Paul Playle and Clare James are still in contention and Dave Baldwin and John Smith in 5th and 6th aren't altogether out of it either... Ian has to be the favourite now though: whilst their performances over the winter and earlier in the year were statistically well based to put them in the band 5 bracket, recent results are around the band 3 area - I reckon something in the order of a 10% improvement in speed round the track. Keep it up guys!

Well, the Tour de France started this week, and to celebrate the race team set the Tour de Reservoir de l'Isle de Barn course for the race. It seemed that way at times anyway... We had I guess F2ish breeze, a nice racing breeze and a course with some long beats and broad reach come runs and a couple of shortish - in one case very short - reaches, which I shan't attempt to describe in detail! As a result, I guess, of an overcast evening with less heating of the ground than of late the breeze was rather less viciously gusty than it has been recently, although there was more than enough variation to enable you to get legs right or wrong...

Graham Potter's Albacore took a good lead away from the slow fleet start, and he wasn't to be caught until close to the end of the race. Ian Hamiltan's Xenon followed, and Gareth Griffiths took an early lead from the Solos. In the Lasers there seemed to be plenty of action: Rob Pettit and Kevin Pearson seemed to be doing a lot of place swapping, and at one stage I only just managed to avoid a very complicated mark rounding situation with two Lasers ahead of me. Names withheld to spare blushes because I'm not entirely sure what the rights and wrongs were, but both went the wrong side of the mark, one capsized and hit it, and one witness claimed that enough penalty turns were done to make him feel dizzy! It all seemed to be conducted without too much in the way of raised voices too: most gentlemanly... In the fast Fleet Mike Curtis took an early lead and progressed steadly through to lead at the end, and Mike Storey was next for the first half of the race... Less in the way of drama amongst that class as far as I could see.

Well results. Here you are. With the scratch series Gareth Griffiths won by a whole two corrected seconds from Mike Curtis. We've had a few very close 1sts/2nds this series, two races won by one second and one by 4... As Gareth was at the wrong side of one of the 1 second results earlier on I guess he deserved the break this time. Messrs Potter, Pearson, Storey and Pettit followed on handicap in that order. In the personal handicap Ian Hamilton won in the Xenon, Alasdair Maclean in an RS200 with ace guest crew Nicola Groves was second, 
Dave Baldwin 3rd in a Laser, I took 4th, Paul Playle (Solo) 5th and Graham Potter 6th.

Series wise....  Well, its hot at the top. 1.3 points separate the top 3, currently Mayhew/Curtis/Griffiths. Kevin Pearson is 4th, whilst Tom Wilson and Rob Pettit are on equal points at 5th and 6th. The personal handicap - well at the moment Alasdair (musical boats) Maclean has a bit of a lead from Paul Playle, Ian Hamilton and ClareJames, but all four are very much in contention. Dave Baldwin and John Smith aren't far away either.

Supper: Thai Chicken. Yum! And a cool drink from the bar to round up an evening's racing. Still, if you were happier watching Big Brother with something warmed in the microwave at home who am I to mock you [much!].

I'm very short of time this week: feel free to add comments to provide some sort of report...

It was a nice sunny evening, with a decent breeze at launching time that tended to ease off a bit, buit still very pleasant conditions...

Dickon Maclean won for the second week running, followed by Carl Mayhew, both in 200s, and then Pettit, Pearson and Smith in Lasers. Mike Storey rounded up the top 6 in his EPS.

The personal handicap went to Ian Hamilton again, then John Smith, Clare James, John Magrath, Dave Baldwin and 6th Alasdair Maclean. Alasdair selected the club National 12 as his personal mount for the evening, presumably to keep me on my toes, as its yet another handicap to fill in, plus we had to research the class age handicap for a 1979 boat...

Results here, as ever, and dinner was delicious: Chicken in herbs, real potatos and various green vegatables...