On Thursday, 12 May Stromness racing was over the westerly course No. 7. Those who know the local winds, will know that the westerlies funnel down between the houses on the hill, which can make for challenging sailing when the wind is strong but this time the wind was fairly light so the main issue was lack of wind round mark No. 1. In the first race, most of the fleet made their approach to the buoy on port tack while one skipper caused mayhem by taking a different line and his shouts of ʻStarboard!ʼ could be heard far and wide as the other boats scattered to give him water at the mark. No prizes for guessing who that was!

Apart from that most of the racing was uneventful. Go Faster Blue won the first race and Thorfinn Johnston was leading crew in the second race. No Fear won the third race. The full results were as follows:

Race 1: 1 Go Faster Blue (Pete Tipler & Thorfinn Johnston), 2 Bonxie (James & Lewis Burgon), 3 No Fear (Neil & Glen Foubister), 4 Go Quickly Red (Malcolm Tipler & Paula Hemsley). 5 Hassfang (Gordon Hill & Harvey Dunnet), 6 Njord (Johnny & Kate Robertson), 7 Scooby (Donny Hall & Andrew Giggle), 8 Double Dutch (Kenny Hall & Dave Bews).

Race 2 Crew: 1 Thorfinn Johnston (Go Faster Blue), 2 Dave Bews (Double Dutch), 3 Andrew Giggle (Scooby), 4 Glen Foubister (No Fear).

Race 3: 1 No Fear, 2 Go Faster Blue, 3 Njord, 4 Go Quickly Red, 5 Double Dutch, 6 Bonxie (crew Sheena Taylor), 7 Hassfang, 8 Scooby.

The safety boat was manned by Dave Wishart and Calum MacIver and the starter was Isobel Tipler.

For photos, see the Stromness Sailing Club Facebook page by clicking here.

RYA Development Officer for Shetland and Orkney, Ewan Stirling, was invited down for the weekend to do some race training for Snipe sailors from Stromness and Holm. On the Friday evening, Double Dutch was used to demonstrate how to set up the rigging better to improve boat performance. On Saturday and Sunday there was on the water training using four boats on the first day and three on the second. Skippers and crew were put to the test in the very strong and gusty westerly winds, which threw some unscheduled capsizes into the mix. Ewan filmed the performance of the sailors and boats on both days and back on shore this was analysed for each individual and recommendations made for improvement. It was a shame that numbers were down due to some late withdrawals but on the plus side Ewan was able to spend more time with those who did take part. The general consensus was that this was a very good weekendʼs training and that Ewan should be invited back to provide more training in future.

Isobel Tipler