Blithfield Barrel at Blithfield Sailing Club - Day 3
by Chris Martin 18 Jan 2010 08:14 GMT
17 January 2010
Blithfield Barrel day 3 © Norman Price
The third round of the barrel series saw another large fleet of 48 boats and the now familiar 10-12 mph of wind. This was boosted by large contingents from Shustoke, Midland and Redditch sailing clubs whose water is still frozen, and one visitor from Cookham demonstrated the popularity of this series.
The first race started with a tempting port bias, the tradeoff being sitting in the lee of the dam for the first few yards of the beat if you were too near the pin. In the event this was irrelevant as the fleet were too keen leading to a general recall. The race got underway with the black flag looming. A slight windshift up the beat negated the initial port bias and this lead to some intersting roundings of the first mark. Merlins and Phantoms were round first, with Andy Davies & Chris Robinson sparring with Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis in their Merlins for most of the race while Andy Couch was never far away in his Phantom. Matt Biggs and Ben crossed the line first to silence as the black flag claimed it's first victim, leaving Andy and Chris to win the race with Andy Couch second and Richard Adams and Abi Spurr climbing from nowhere to third in the dying wind.
After lunch, some excellent pies provided by Jayne Tatton, the second race again got underway under the black flag. This time there were no victims but the light, fluky conditions that have summed up the barrel series so far were back with a vengeance as the breeze dropped to 8 and then 5 mph. Again there was the slightly tempting port end, in slightly less breeze under the dam, but this rapidly turned out to be a bad move as a large wind bend appeared about 100 yards up the beat. This lead to even more interesting roundings of the first mark with some creative interpretations of the 3 boat length rule! Snakes and Ladders were very much in play now with massive gains to be had and lost in a dying and variable breeze. Andy Davies and Chris Robinson overcame their alleged weight handicap to take their second bullet, followed by the lightweight Richard Adams and Abi Spurr and representing the elder members of the fleet Richard Dee and Chris Gould came home third.
So as it stands Andys Couch and Davies have it all to play for at the next event. Matt Biggs is not totally out of the picture, and any position in the top 10 vulnerable. The next barrel weekend is the 21st February - be there!