Easter Regatta 2nd to 5th April 2021. Race officers: Nigel & Mel Jupp, Gareth Luker, Jo. Patrol Boat: Rawlings C&T, Dan/Tom England, Hendrix Allan, Beach Master: Niall Walters/Tim Rose/Ian Robertson
Conditions:
Friday: N/E 3-4, partially cloudy. Cold.
Sunday: S/W 4-5 Sunny, about 7 degrees more of Celsius and it would have been perfect.
Monday: N/E 4-6 sunny. Cold.
Worthing Sailing Club returned with three days of stonking great sailing, decent fleets, ace winds it was a real shot in the arm. Although the higher winds favoured the faster cats, the handicapped fleet still saw lots of competition throughout its ranks with particularly good performances by some of the non-D18 sailors, especially in the very strong gusty offshore conditions on Monday.
Fevas a short account by Noah Walters:
The first races of the season were quite breezy, but even with the strong winds the three Fevas that were out handled it very well seeing as it was our first sail in a long time. Josh and I managed to be the first capsize of the season quickly followed by the other two, Amelia sailing with Max, and George with Luca. It was close racing between the three fevas that were out on Friday with George/Luca in the lead at the end of the day.
The wind had dropped over Saturday meaning that there were four Fevas out on the Sunday, with Friday's trio joined by Hannah and Archie. As the wind dropped significantly, it turned a very breezy day into the perfect weather to get the spinnaker up for a few downwind legs. At the start of the second race, we were in second place behind George and Luca heading up to the windward mark and we headed that tiny bit higher and just managed to grab the first place.
Over Sunday night and Monday morning the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. This meant that both the races on Monday were very cold and windy. The northerly meant that it was very gusty and shifty. For us the race we did on Monday was about not capsizing more than trying to win. We retired before race 6, and chose to use our discard wisely and drink cups of tea.
Noah Walters
Incidents of note to fill up space
Fi Goegebeur tried to slowly drown herself by not doing her drysuit up properly and then contriving for the traveller to break whilst out on the wire, occasioning immersion and then watery-ingress.
New to D18 racing, Jaime Medina, crewed by expert navigator Chris Burke, blithely sailed over the windward spacer buoy, seemingly without consequence although suspiciously their port rudder wheels became dislodged and they had to abandon r5 in order to get a replacement.
Feckless students Holly Winrow and Izzy Gee broke their D16 bridle-bar (is that what it's called?) and suffered a low slung mast and dropped main as a consequence they'd sailed quite a blinder in r5 too, getting 5th before having to retire ("I was so cold I definitely thought that I was going to die" quoth Izzy, a tad dramatically).
Generally there were lots of capsizes, particularly monos in the gusty conditions on Friday, and quite a few good D18 nose-dives we saw Debs/Barry do one that would have had most crews (alright, me) resigned to carrying out capsize drill but they managed to retrieve it. How Simon and I cheered that. Aforementioned ex-commodore, now returned to the ranks ("thank you for your service, sir"), performed an excellent fandango up to the bridle whilst on the trapeze as a gust threatened us on the reach. But it does look like the honour of the first catamaran competitive capsize of the season is still not awarded. The second race on Monday was pretty full-on sailing with Caleb putting on a good demo of single-handed high-wind sailing, and Gilbert manfully getting through. But it was George/Luca who earned the viewers' choice award for indefatigably sailing both races without incident.
Welcome to new member Hendrix Allan, who got well involved by sailing on the Friday and patrol-boating on Sunday.
With some top D18 crews in action, Rob/Fi, Caleb/Chloe, Rod&Holly Winrow, David Lloyd/Joanne Trafford, we had some spectacular, fast and competitive sailing; it was as per this list for first and second overall, with Debs/Barry getting 3rd. Leading monos were the two Fevas mentioned above, with Andy Ruffer, who didn't sail on Monday, in the laser - but all they get is an honourable mention as it was a handicap event.
The various notes of thanks (see WhatsApp) to those mentioned at the top of the report bears repetition. It is also my pleasurable duty to report on the first Dan England-as-Commodore-sailing-event which was completely fantastic, well organised, great weather; he's already doing a brilliant job!
Patrick Palmer |
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