Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club

Sunshine. Breeze. Plenty of breeze. Maybe too much breeze for some. The Aero 9 contingent magically turned into part of the Aero 7 contingent before a boat had even touched the water. Hopefully a proper report later, but some thoughts...

Race one was spectacularly close among the Phantoms. Something like 5 boats overlapped around the leeward mark at the end of the first lap. Maybe some photos later. Pretty close racing amongst the Aeros too. Mike Tustin got the win in the Phantoms, Emma Pearson in the Aero 5s, and Peter Barton in the Aero 7s. It was a nightmare race for the committee boat crew, because people were getting lapped, Phantoms were lapping Aeros, Aeros were catching Phantoms, Aeros were lapping upside down Aeros,and it was really easy to get confused about how many laps people had done. Think we got it right.

Race 2 saw distinctly attritionised fleets, especially among the Phantoms. (Isn't that an utterly horrible word, I should be ashamed of myself!?). Phantoms were a bit more spread out, first 5 Aero 7s were within 30 seconds at the finish. Matt Evans took the 5 race, Simon Hawkes the Phantom, and Mr Aero won a second 7 race. This was the windiest race I think.

Lunch. Welcome I think. Tired arms, tired legs, wet clothing...

Race 3. Something of a runaway for Pete Barton who won the 7s by over a minute. Matt Evans took another 5 race and Mike Tustin setting up a grandstand finish for the Phantoms.

Race 4. Tired legs. Except perhaps for Pete Barton's who took a 4th win. Matt Evans won the 5s, and Simon Hawkes won the Phantoms to win the series on tie break.

Many apologies, ladies and gentlemen, for not having the full results available before you left the club. It was a bit of a fraught day on the results side, which is why you got a distinctly second rate service. Apologies for that, we usually do better.

Anyway, hit this link for the results.

9 photographs

Photos, also a bit sub par. Above is a little gallery of a few of the ones I found amusing. This link should get you to a Flickr album of all the shots I took, good (hopefully), bad and appalling. There aren't many that stand out unfortunately. It was really disappointing as sun and wind should have been good for photos (even though the wind direction wasn't ideal for light)  and I'd hoped to spend more time on the water with the camera than I was able to.