Lightning368 Open at Oxford Sailing Club

Ahh, Oxford. The day gleamed in glorious spring sunshine. The dreaming spires rose magically toward the heavens, the water of Farmoor lay flat as a pancake as nary a ripple was seen across the reservoir.

Hang on, is this an episode of 'Great British Train Journeys' or a high-intensity, deadly serious dinghy race?

As it turns out, it was the latter... though with an average windspeed dropping to the region of 1.5mph, 'race' was always going to be a debatable word.

The Lightnings love going to Oxford. A nice big patch of water to play on that usually rewards us with good hiking and great tactical choices all around the big courses. Today, though, patience would be the key as a fantastic turnout of twenty-one boats took to the water for race one, in what turned out to be pretty much the only 'breeze' that blew over Farmoor that day.

Making a quick getaway in the already waning breeze, Cookham's Richard Palmer sailed smoothly on the first beat and built up a huge lead that was never challenged, the rest of the fleet falling off the back of whatever wind Richard had picked up.

In fact, in not too short a space of time, he was up amongst the Solution fleet that we were sharing the event with.

Behind, the battle was on to find that all-important clear wind. Lee Bratley searched some out on the second beat to go from around 14th to 5th - before promptly stopping dead in the water after rounding the mark - almost the whole fleet managing to drift past! All very tactical and relying on a lot of patience and, sometimes, a lot of good fortune. Richard romped away with this race and was probably back in the clubhouse for lunch before many of us had even finished.

Oxford local Sue Thomas finished second with youngster Alex Baxter living up to his early season billing on the podium in third.

With praddles to hand and an armoury of 'jokes' at the ready, a long (understandable) postponement had us all following the committee boat as we searched for something that resembled a vaguely useable breeze.

Have you seen that youtube video (Other online suppliers of moderately/questionably humorous video footage are available) of the orphaned ducklings following their new daddy around the garden? - search it out, it's actually quite cute - well, we were like that.

Unsure of who claimed the "Thankyou very much, I'll be here all week" award, but punchline: "Nnnnnnnnnnnnn..." could probably take the prize.

Apparently, there was also a race to be completed and several were awoken from a lovely sunbaked snooze by the first warning signal.

Again, finding that one puff that could whisk you away from the fleet was vital and it was Alex Baxter that found it beautifully - and off he went, into the horizon. In fact, he was so far ahead that I think he had reached the horizon of a parallel universe version of Earth at one point!

Behind him, the fleet searched painfully for anything that could progress the boats forward. Again, Bratley found breeze out in the wilderness and passed six or seven boats on one leg - only to lose it all when the only zephyrs available were either side of him on the run to the finish - dropping from sixth to twelfth in about thirty metres.

But feel for Jason Gallagher... as race three was abandoned before he'd even finished race two!

So, Alex won race two with Richard Palmer second and Simon Hopkins third. With the abandonment, Richard took the overall event by one point from Alex with Simon Hopkins third.

A trying day - not least for the race officer who had an incredibly unenviable task of setting courses in the conditions, but who did a wonderful job in at least getting us out for two races.

After two rounds, the series sees Richard Palmer leading the way, with Alex Baxter up in second and Simon Hopkins in third.

A huge thanks to everyone at Oxford for a great day out, despite the lack of wind, we hope we didn't upset the Solution fleet too much with our rubbish jokes and we'll reconvene at Broxbourne on Saturday the 17th of May for round three of this years Lightning368 Grand Prix series.

Overall Results: