Mirror Travellers Series at Dee Sailing Club

Mirror Travellers Series at Dee in Liverpool © Sarah Richards

Mirror Travellers Series at Dee in Liverpool © Sarah Richards

For the first time in the 2013 Traveller Series, the event was held on the sea. Dee Sailing Club in Wirral, Liverpool, hosted a great event with a total of 14 boats, 11 local and 3 travellers. The turn out from the club was great and their hospitality was also brilliant. Thankfully the weather was also lovely with unbroken sunshine all day and for the first two races enough wind to make the racing enjoyable and competitive.

All three races were back to back and the first race began at 11 or thereabouts, Rachel Grayson and George Stainforth were first around the windward mark followed by Emma and then George Richards. The course was a simple triangle sausage, with just one lap and a straight through the line finish. Unfortunately the leaders of the group, and the travellers, had not recognised the position of the finish line and proceeded to do another lap whilst all of the locals behind us finished, so we ended up in the back few. The Hayley's took full advantage and posted a first. We took this on board and remembered how to do it for the second race.

The next race saw a little more wind which was good as the tide was turning and towards the end of the race was going out so pushed against us on the beat. First around the windward mark and first to finish were Emma and Ben, followed by Reg and then George Richards.

The importance of getting a good result in this race was to become apparent later. James Douglas and Charlie Weing did just that and was one of the top local boats. Johnny Harris seemed to get abandoned by his crew and the Ewings and Jennets were steady away. All boats sailed the correct course!

The final race was very interesting one. The wind was nice for the first beat and the first half of the reach however the tide was well and truly going out at quite some pace which meant that we were getting pushed sideways, the left, away from the next mark. George Richards was second around the windward mark and held his position until the wind dropped dramatically.

Luckily, Emma, who rounded the mark 4th noticed the tide and continued sailing upwind, to approach the mark from a higher position and let the tide move her down to it, local boats also spotted this and did the same. This was also advantageous as the wind started to fill in just where they were so they managed to overtake the boats underneath.

The wind then dropped again to nearly nothing and at this point only Emma and Ben had rounded the mark. They managed to hold onto first right to the finish line, which had moved as the course had been shortened due to the lack of wind. Because a boat had finished they could not abandon the race even though all wind that there was, had gone and the rest of the fleet were moving at quite some pace.......backwards. All of the boats ended up at least 20 boat lengths port of the mark which meant that they would have to beat against the tide in no wind to get anywhere near the it.

Unfortunately no other boats managed to finish the race as it became physically impossible to move forwards and they were towed in. This meant that Reg and George, and George and Alexander had to count a bad result from the first race a DNF which was ultimately bad luck as they were in 2nd and 3rd in the last race until the drastic change in weather conditions. Down to sheer luck in that last race Emma and Ben managed a 1st which meant that they won overall.

Another massive thank you to Dee SC for hosting this event and it definitely should be used for squad training next year as it is a perfect place to learn some tidal tactics.