Dragon Force 65 Saturday Summer Series at Fleetwood - Day 4
by Tony Wilson 7 Aug 2016 15:19 BST
6 August 2016
The sounds of the seaside with families on school holidays, ice cream, kites, and fishing nets on poles along with crabbing lines. The coconut odour of suncream, blue skies with lots of sunshine and a breeze of about 10 knots straight down the lake, what more do you need for a good day out sailing.
10 skippers turned up for the afternoon for what looked like perfect conditions for the stock supplied boats, four of which had the red Dragon emblem print sail, so would they be at a disadvantage to the ever trendy after market sails.
A square course was set of 2 laps clockwise,in the central area of the lake. The start was a third way up and finish results were taken by Peter Jackson. at the bench mark towards the top end of the lake.
Tim Lanigan was present and in top form from his previous July Df65 Nationals third place glory, so the rest of the fleet would need to up their game and keep on his heels if they were trailing.
Usually we try for eight races on each Dragon event and by race 4 Tim was certainly up for it and leaving the rest behind.
Tony lent his boat out to an interested guy for a couple of races to try how these little boats handle. The procedure is that, whenever a passerby has a trial with your yacht, you get an average score for the day on his results. At one point, Peter was shouting out number 52 for a while as he had become a bit distracted and decided to sail another similar dragon print sail, while leaving his boat to drift down the bottom end.
There was some good grouping at times that showed most of the fleet were equaled to each other with whatever their setup and non were really left out.
A slightly later finish than the regular scheduled 2 hours, had Tim Lanigan triumph as the days winner with an unbeaten score of eight first places. It's not very often you can drop 2 firsts as your worst discards. Well done Tim.
John Plant came second with Eddie Greenwood closely behind on points in third.
Apparently skippers in second and fourth position managed their placing with the stock supplied sail. So in lightish conditions up to about 15MPH you are not really any worse off than with what you take out of the box for your all in £150 start price for this little gem.
Next Saturday is at the earlier time for a morning sailing of 10:30. Please check the club website for events as not all Saturdays are sailed, https://fleetwoodmypbc.org.uk/calendar/. Also every Wednesday evening at the usual time of 18:30.
Thanks to Ken Crabtree our Dragon Force Skipper super efficient with arranging racing and up-to-date scoring.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Skipper | Sail No | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | R7 | R8 | Pts |
|---|
| 1 | Tim Lanigan | 502 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| 2 | John Plant | 167 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 14 |
| 3 | Eddie Greenwood | 363 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 7 | 20 |
| 4 | Tony Wilson | 52 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 22 |
| 5 | Eric Reid | 698 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 8 | 24 |
| 6 | Ken Crabtree | 49 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 26 |
| 7 | Mike Benson | 83 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 40 |
| 8 | Tim Saam | 57 | 6 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 11 | 6 | 11 | 45 |
| 9 | Trevor Bell | 490 | 11 | 11 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 46 |
| 10 | Ian Hawtin | 1032 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 50 |