Contender Open at Downs Sailing Club

by Peter Noble 16 Jun 2015 09:47 BST 14 June 2015

The long range forecast of loads of wind was replaced by a more accurate no wind for the one day event on Sunday. The start was postponed for an hour and a half which resulted in much tea drinking and talking rubbish, or reminiscing as some people call it.

We all got excited by a decent sea breeze filling in and headed for a 1230 start. Despite a couple of brave port tack flyers Peter Noble tacked inshore early out of the tide and was first around the windward mark followed by Dave Adams and Pete Giffen, a very rare Broadstairs 1, 2, 3! Adrian Smith and Chris Boshier sneaked through to second and third and started to close the gap to Peter. Adrian got through on the 4th lap and Chris just pipped Peter to second on the line.

Race 2 saw Adrian Peter and Alan Mollatt in contention until Peter misjudged a port starboard with Adrian and did turns. Adrian led at the windward mark and Dave Adams fought through to second with Chris third. The places were unchanged at the finish with Adrian and Dave comfortably first and second, Chris third.

The sea breeze started to die off when the sun went in and race 3 started in very marginal trapezing conditions. Peter managed to sneak round in front of Tony Cook and they headed inshore to get out of the tide that had now changed direction. The wind then died completely and then returned like a sparrow fart from the South East which gave an advantage to the boats slightly further out to sea. Peter and Tony then got the puff and managed to squeeze round the leeward mark and miss the total carnage which included the rest of the Contenders, Toppers and handicap class all piling in together. Quite a few expletives and boat crunching was the result. Despite pleas from Peter and Tony to shorten the course we were sent for another lap with no chance of getting round against the tide, so race 3 was abandoned.

Adrian won overall on 2 points, Chris second on 5 points, and Dave Adams third on 6 points.

Thanks to everyone involved in running this event, it was nice to get some sailing in despite the forecast.