The excitement was tangible, we were finally getting back on the water to race. And what a turnout for 1.2 Tuesday points, Helen in a club Laser radial, Becci in her newly acquired laser (immaculately kept and with an incredible reputation from TC) with a radial sail and Conor with his new Laser from ”down south” and a brand new radial sail and rigging… that’s all going to be some competition this season! Joining the fun Erwin concluded that the boom acquired whilst his was repaired did not pass muster forwent his Solo and joined Bill in his Wanderer for their first time together. Nick Whyte’s Solo had appeared during the week after a  full years absence suggesting his potential presence which was not to be a disappointment and Tony W joined him in another Solo.

An interesting undulating breeze that had turned quite cold but from ESE, an unusual direction welcomed the fleet and to keep the numbers up  a pursuit race ensued with the Wanderer starting on time, Laser Radials 1min 56sec later and the Solos 2min 9 seconds after the Wanderer. Because of the wind direction and the lack of buoys in the right places (where has G gone what’s A mark doing marking the gap?) the course was set as h port, k starboard, L starboard, and f port… and a lot of puzzled faces, but we thought we’d all got it sorted out.. not completely though!

Bill and Erwin got off to grand start demonstrating the best point on the line.. we all thought, then Helen started further South, found the wind and was off apparently very quickly catching up on Bill and taking a march on Becci who started further down the line. Nick very quickly made up the Solos handicap time whilst Tony made the wrong choice going lower than Becci. Where was Conor… well when you have all that new rigging you’ve got to enjoy putting it all together…. but it can mean you miss the start of the race… he enjoyed the sailing when all assembled!

Helen and Nick lead the race 1 and 2 until Nick decided to take L to port and had to revisit it to give everyone else a chance. At that point Bill was Third and Tony and Becci were having a chat at the back! In total only one lap was completed in the 40 minutes, Helen , with a significant lead running to F lost the wind completely and allowed the rest of the fleet to catch up significantly and was overtaken by Tony and Nick on the last leg. Giving a result of:

1 Tony
2 Nick
3 Helen
4 Becci
5 Bill and Erwin

But enjoyed by all
(* the first Tuesday series was not raced due to stormy conditions)