Supernova Travellers' Trophy event at Bough Beech Sailing Club
by Chris Watts 9 Apr 2016 08:07 BST
2 April 2016
This was the first Travellers' Trophy event at Bough Beech in recent times and the only one south east of London in this year's fixtures. A near-perfect sunny force 3, gusting 4 southerly was forecast and this largely materialised, promising some good sailing on this 250 acre reservoir set in the North West Kent countryside.
In the event, 7 visitors joined 4 club boats for some close racing with much place changing during each race and most competitors glad to be able to discard one result. As ever, those with the most consistent results prevailed.
The race officer, Don Buckle, set a large 'P' course from a committee boat moored well down the lake, testing the whole range of points of sailing.
Race 1 saw Ed Presley from Cotswold SC lead the 3 lap race from start to finish and Paul Undrell, Paul Earnshaw and Richard Lambert occupied the next three places throughout. There was more place changing by the rest of the fleet.
As the wind grew a little more gusty, Race 2 was held back-to-back and the first four places were an exact reversal of Race 1, although Martin Burgess occupied second place for some of the race.
Following a break for lunch, with the wind becoming lighter and more variable in direction, Race 3 proved to be the discard for three of the four leaders so far and Ian Casewell won followed by Chris Watts, Earnshaw and Undrell.
The planned final race back-to-back was nearly cancelled when the wind turned much more to the east and, with time running out, the Race Officer managed, speedily, to reset the windward mark and the line; saving the schedule. Race 4 was back to the same leading four as the first race and these were also the overall places for the event.
It seemed to be felt by those who made the journey that they had enjoyed a good day's sailing.