For the first time this season, the wind was fairly strong and from the north-east on Thursday, 11 August so the Commodore’s Cup series races were sailed over course 2. Seven Snipes competed with four of the young trainees - Nathan Omand, Ed Johnstone, Griogair Morrison and Aidan Morrison - again crewing for Snipe skippers. Just getting launched and sailing away from the slip was a bit of a challenge but racing got under way just a few minutes late.
The club boat Nemo was pre-booked for someone else, so this week Ian Johnstone switched to Bonxie. After a long battle between the first four boats, it was finally down to Bonxie and Go Faster Blue to fight it out for first place but the challenge to Bonxie fell away when Go Faster Blue suffered gear failure close to the final mark of the course. Go Faster Blue managed to hold on to second place and effect a quick repair in time for the next race. Go Quickly Red came third. Wild Goose retired due to gear failure but fortunately was able to switch to Nemo in time for the second race as the person who had pre-booked the boat had not arrived. “Every cloud has a silver lining...” and all that.
In the second and third races Go Faster Blue, Nemo and Bonxie took the first three places but not without some very close and competitive sailing and battles for all the places in the second race. The wind dropped away during the third race and the fleet became very spread out with Go Quickly Red bringing up the rear.
The full results were:
Race 1: 1 Bonxie (Ian Johnstone and trainee Nathan Omand), 2 Go Faster Blue (Pete Tipler and Thorfinn Johnston), 3 Go Quickly Red (Malcolm Tipler and Paula Hemsley), 4 Hassfang (Chris Moore and trainee Aidan Morrison), 5 Humdinger (Barry Jones and trainee Nathan Omand), 6 Double Dutch (Kenny Holland and Dave Bews). Rtd. Wild Goose.
Race 2: 1 Go Faster Blue, 2 Nemo, 3 Bonxie, 4 Go Quickly Red, 5 Hassfang, 6 Humdinger, 7 Double Dutch.
Race 3: 1 Go Faster Blue, 2 Nemo, 3 Bonxie, 4 Hassfang, 5 Humdinger, 6 Double Dutch, 7 Go Quickly Red.
Donnie Hall and Sheena Taylor manned the support boat and Isobel Tipler was the starter.
Isobel Tipler