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WEEK SEVEN (JUNE 11TH) - LIGHTER AND VARIABLE

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  • Week Seven (June 11th) - Lighter and variable

    There were some ominous clouds about, but the rain held off. Although it looked pretty windy when folk were at work it was really force twoish at rigging time, and so it proved for the race. The Solos (plus Graham Potter's Albacore) got away on probably the best of the wind, but all the starts had enough to be interesting. The course was vaguely what I think of as a Bruce Banks course - if you're familiar with their sailmakers badge maybe you know what I mean - consisting of a beat, starboard hand rounding at the windward mark, a reach, then a starboard rounding gybe mark for another reach which crosses the line of the beat, and then two port roundings with a reach in between to get back to the beat. The wind was swinging some and tended to go round during the evening, making the beat increasingly one sided.

    The wind tended to come through in bands, leading to a lot of compression on the runs. Down the first run, which for the fast fleet was an exceedingly light affair, Peter Curtis looked at the Solos in the distance and remarked that it looked like a Solo night. That seemed to be the story for the fast fleet, going down the runs in very light stuff watching the clock ticking away...

    The Solos were having a good old race in fact - they never seemed to be very far away from each other, and all four finished within a minute of each other. Results wise Peter's prediction proved true - the Solos took 1st to 4th, in order Gareth Griffiths, Mervyn Cinnamond, Peter Cottrell and Arthur Phillips, with John Magrath 5th in his Laser the only one to disturb the Slow start racers domination of the evening. Graham Potter, having a rare outing in his Albacore took sixth, but the real highlight of Graham's race was the last leg, where a low beam of sunshine came under the louring clouds and lit up his boat like a spotlight...

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