Lord Birkitt - A boat show on water

For anyone interested in sailing dinghy design and development this years Lord Birkitt, quite apart from being a brilliantly organised and highly enjoyable two days of sailing was a great opportunity to see almost every class of dinghy regularly sailed in the UK and plenty not so regularly sailed (..... OK, perhaps that's a small exaggeration, but not by much!). There was even a Merlin Rocket that hadn't gone to Salcombe and a foiling Moth clearly not preparing for the worlds. But Tempests, Open Canoes, IC One Design, IC Assym, Firefly, Soling, Int 14, Miracle, Comet Trio, Swordfish, 49er, and yes... even a Laser EPS.... were all there on the one start line with the rest! Very nice to see!

And 14 different designs in the top 20!

"A boat show on water" - not my description but AlexM's.

Huge thanks to the large number of helpers from Ullswater SC for putting on a great weekend and also to Sailracer for handing out the trackers that enabled us to record our moment of fun/fame in the X1 on the second day - of leading the whole damn fleet except for the one 49er, around half way into the race...before the windy stuff came in.

Can't recommend the event more highly - if you thought of going but the rain on Friday put you off, you missed a good one...

And the lessons learnt for us?
- that that there Alex and Gareth from L&L have got much better heavy weather technique than us
- and that consistency wins in the end!

But hats off to the RS400 boys from Delph who took home the chocolates.....

Edited by ChrisI - 07 Jul 14 at 11:33pm

First time doing the Lord Birkitt, well really the first time I have done a dinghy regatta with more than 20 boats, it was pretty mental on the start line but absolutely amazing to sail.

Yes I was buggered yesterday, but the sight of seeing all the skiffs absolutely flying by after coming round the island and heading towards you was brilliant.

Well organized, very friendly crews, worth the 630mls round trip to sail our old Albacore.

I will certainty be back.

With 14 classes in the top 20, it's a pretty good vindication of the handicap system they were using, helped no doubt by the mixed weather.

That said, isn't the massed start unfair on the slower boats? They must have spent the beat in nothing but dirty air. As a competitor I'd prefer a Bloody Mary style staggered start sequence, but with the usual timing and handicap adjustments at the end. Easy to set up in Sailwave.

I've not done it, but isn't the start half the fun / point of it? If you get two days of well organised, fun sailing, does the handicap matter?

Originally posted by Medway Maniac With 14 classes in the top 20, it's a pretty good vindication of the handicap system they were using, helped no doubt by the mixed weather. That said, isn't the massed start unfair on the slower boats? They must have spent the beat in nothing but dirty air. As a competitor I'd prefer a Bloody Mary style staggered start sequence, but with the usual timing and handicap adjustments at the end. Easy to set up in Sailwave.