| Laser Open 2011 |
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Rumour had it that this might be the hottest October day since records began. Certainly it felt more like July. It looked like July too with a mirror-like reservoir and not the slightest trace of breeze. Racing in the morning was clearly going to be pathetic, so all took an early lunch. At midday a very decent breeze filled in, but sadly it had diminished and become somewhat erratic by the end of the start sequence. It came back during the afternoon though and in the end 4 reasonable races were held. Winner was, for the umpteenth time, Graham Lund of Aldenham: I hope his family aren't getting to fed up with having the plate in his house. 1st IBRSC & First Grand Master was Rob Pettit, 1st U18 Luke Hagon from Chipstead, and 1st Lady Jane Hill from Wembley. Interesting to speculate on why the wind came in at 12... it happened on Sunday with similar wind conditions as well. My guess is that a temperature inversion set up over night so that the land was cool and the atmosphere very undisturbed so whatever gradient wind was happening a few thousand feet up wasn't reaching the ground. Once the sun heated the land up the lower atmosphere was disturbed and the gradient wind came down to the ground. What's interesting about this is of course the time after sunrise. Sunrise was about 7 am this weekend, so if my theory about temperature inversion is correct it took about 5 hours for the land to warm up enough to bring the gradient wind down. In July that would bring the wind down about 9 or 10 am... |
