RG65 & DF65 Easter Popup at Fleetwood Model Yacht Club
by Tony Wilson 4 Apr 2018 12:08 BST
2 April 2018
RG65/DF65 Easter Monday Popup at Fleetwood © Tony Wilson
An atrocious weather forecast for snow hitting the North of England meant that most of the roads would be deserted and folks would probably stay stranded at home unless for emergencies.
Despite the bad forecast, and rain instead of snow, eleven skippers popped up to Fleetwood for the Easter Monday annual Popup. A mix of five DF65s and six RG65s to battle it out for the Fleetwood Crab Trophy. This is a plastic toy and had grown up men braving the elements and battling over it with their toy boats.
It was noticed that a couple of cars pulled up on the roadside with folks looking in bewilderment, wondering what we were doing in the pouring rain. As a child we used to be quite happy if we found a plastic soldier or other toy in your lucky bag or Kinder egg, and likewise with us fighting over what some saw as Fleetwood's sacred emblem. The CRAB.
A rigs were appearing on the lake, that were swapped for B's then again finally the smallest C rigs before racing was able to commence. One or two persevered with the middle rig for the day.
John Tushingham, the holder of the crown, whether he did actually burn or barbecue the last one or not, set the standard for the day with the first couple of wins. A few folk were having boat issues early on but 4 races went ahead before a pit stop break was called. Dripping off and trying to get warm in doors it was probably half an hour before dragging themselves out again.
Three more races were had before lunch as the target was to get in a total of ten to make the day worthwhile. Races five and six were won by Dave Potter and he commented that he didn't mind if we called it a day as he had achieved his goal by snatching a couple of wins from John.
The two different classes mixing it together works fine and by looks you can hardly tell the difference and this usually only to the trained eye and they are just a tad quicker in speed which is to be expected.
Again at lunchtime there was the usual moaning in the galley about whether to continue or go home and dry off and rightly so as the rain had persisted all morning. Three more races were agreed on to complete 10 and by now the rain had actually eased or even stopped. Some had even gone bigger on rig size, but the direction was still Easterly from what we have been mainly used to for the past month.
The three final races continued and then it was back to the club house for the final time, and a discussion on whether to continue or just have another tea break. Uncle Derek rallied the troops out again as most were in agreement for another 3 races and even hinted to whether we would want to make it 16 in total for the 3 discards. Maybe he was just looking for a reaction, but then again some may have been up for it, probably the ones in their nice cosey romper suits that didn't let in any water.
So again on the day and the great holder of the giant crab was John Tushingham being the overall group winner and winner of the RG65 class. Chris Chatfield was the winner in the Dragon Force 65 group of Skippers.
Full results will be eventually posted on the Fleetwood Model Yacht Club home page.
The next action at Fleetwood for the Dragon Force is the Df65 and DF95 TT at the end of the month which has already got about 10 skippers enrolled for each class.