Stromness Sailing

 

Thursday, 28 July 2011 was the last chance for Snipes and crews to score points in the May-July points series and five boats turned out to compete. It was a beautiful sunny evening with a reasonable breeze from the northwest so course 8 was used. Isobel Tipler was the starter.

 

In the first race, Hassfang’s skipper, Chris Moore, made his intentions known by getting a good start and leading the race from start to finish. There was some early skirmishing amongst the other boats but eventually Go Faster Blue secured second place ahead of Double Dutch, with Scooby and Nemo in fourth and fifth.

 

The second race was a crew race and Hassfang, with Harvey Dunnet at the helm, was again quckest off the mark at the start and was never challenged. Go Faster Blue started the race at the back and managed to overtake Scooby on the third leg of the course before hunting down Double Dutch but, although there was a fierce battle between them, Double Dutch just managed to hold on to finish in second place.

 

At the start of the third race, Go Faster Blue just squeezed out Hassfang who had to circle away and come round again to start the race. This allowed Go Faster Blue to build up a substantial lead and the skipper, Pete Tipler, must have thought this would be ‘his’ race. But it all went horribly wrong around buoy no 3 where there was very little wind. Somehow Hassfang managed to find what little wind there was while others were almost becalmed and came through to win the race with Go Faster Blue second. Double Dutch and Scooby battled each other to the end, with Double Dutch just managing to secure third place. Nemo retired due to gear failure.

 

The full results were:

 

Race 1: 1 Hassfang (Chris Moore and Harvey Dunnet), 2 Go Faster Blue (Pete Tipler and Thorfinn Johnston), 3 Double Dutch (Kenny Holland and Dave Bews), 4 Scooby (Donnie Hall and Finley Hall), 5 Nemo (Malcolm Tipler and Paula Hemsley).

 

Race 2 (Crew): 1 Harvey Dunnet (Hassfang), 2 Dave Bews (Double Dutch), 3 Thorfinn Johnston (Go Faster Blue), 4 Finley Hall (Scooby)

 

Race 3: 1 Hassfang, 2 Go Faster Blue, 3 Double Dutch, 4 Scooby.  Rtd. Nemo

 

The series results will be announced at the annual prizegiving. Next week sees the start of the Commodore’s Cup series which runs throughout August.

 

The support boat was manned by Angus Budge along with Mark Taylor and Ian Johnstone who were coaching six youngsters sailing Toppers.

 

The Topper sailors did some good sailing exercises round buoys and also played a game which seemed to involve a quoit and a great deal of shouting, laughing, barging and bumping and the odd capsize. The slipway rope seemed to act like a magnet and over the course of the evening most of the Toppers at some point became pinned to the rope by the wind and the skippers had to work out how to deal with being, in effect, on a lee shore. Some solved the problem by lifting dagger board and rudder and sailing over the rope - can’t do that on a lee shore, guys - but others eventually worked out how to turn their boats and sail away from the rope. As usual the session ended with lots of deliberate capsizes, then sailing back to shore against the wind and disembarking to secure and de-rig the boat, preferably before it could drift off downwind again. 

 

Isobel Tipler