Scottish Solo Travellers at Loch Lomond Sailing Club

Fifteen Solos gathered at Loch Lomond on September 6th for round 5 of the SailingFast.co.uk sponsored travellers' series, and with a modest breeze and even some sunshine forecast, we were all looking forward to a good day on the water.

The race officer clearly meant business, as he had several fleets to get started, and so it was marks down, line set, go! Reading the light and shifty conditions best were Kevan Gibb, David Sword, and Jim Allan who rounded the first mark in that order. David managed to find a little extra pressure at the gybe mark to claim an overlap and the lead, and then these three crept away from the rest of the fleet a little, as the wind dropped and shifted to make the rest of the race a bit of a procession. At the finish the whole fleet were fairly closely bunched, with David, Kevan and Jim still leading them home.

Suddenly we had a bit more breeze and a 90 degree shift, so with the course quickly reset we were off again - a good close start and a drag race on starboard saw Richard Bolton get pushed out to the right, from where he reappeared to just cross David and Kevan, rounding first. Then followed a triangle and sausage where the 2 leading boats were rarely more than 2 lengths apart, with Kev sitting waiting to pounce on any mistakes - eventually, a frenzied tacking duel kicked off, with David just managing to sneak out from under Richard's tight cover to grab the lead which he just held to the finish, winning by about 50 cm! Behind Kevan in 3rd a similar duel was going on between Robert Signer and Fergus Duncanson, with Robert also snatching victory by a very small margin.

And suddenly we had even more breeze - proper 'pull the kicker till it squeals' sort of breeze! This time there was a scrum at the committee boat end, and when the dust had settled Kevan had been pushed out to the right, where he picked up a nice lift to round first followed shortly by David and then Richard and Robert. David and Kevan locked horns for 2 laps without the gap between them changing much, but at the start of the third beat, David tacked off left for clear air and instead found the inside of a twenty degree shift! Kevan had to settle for second, with Richard third and Robert again just beating Fergus across the line for fourth. The rest of the fleet finished in a fairly closely packed bunch a little way back, with places lost and won right up to the end of the last beat of the last race - and that's why we go Solo sailing!

A big thanks to Loch Lomond for fitting our event into their regatta at fairly short notice, and to our sponsors SailingFast, who give us a brand new sail for the prize draw at the end of the series - all qualifiers go into the draw, and with two events still to go (Newburgh and St. Marys) there are many more potential qualifiers. Consider yourself invited!

Overall Results:

1st David Sword (CCC / Loch Tummel SC)
2nd Kevan Gibb (Largo Bay SC)
3rd Richard Bolton (East Lothian YC)
4th Robert Signer (Loch Ard SC)
5th Fergus Duncanson (CCC)
6th James Allan (Newburgh SC)
7th Colin Crichton (CCC)
8th David Whyte (CCC)
9th Patrick Burns (RYA)
10th Paul Cook (Helensburgh SC)
11th Nigel Ford (St. Andrews SC)
12th Alastair Wyper (CCC)
13th Walter Mouat (St. Andrews SC)
14th Don Jamie (CCC)
15th Michael Lidwell (Cove SC)