RC Laser and Df65 Southport Winter Series at West Lancs

RC Laser and Df65 Southport Winter Series at West Lancs - Overall

by Tony Wilson 23 Mar 2017 06:15 GMT 19 March 2017

Strong winds for the RC Laser and Df65 Winter Series finale © Tony Wilson

Alan Tickle presents the Barometer Trophy to Winner Df65 John Tushingham after the RC Laser and Df65 Winter Series © John Sharman

Alan Tickle presents the Bell Trophy to Winner RC Lasers Shaun Holbeche after the RC Laser and Df65 Winter Series finale © John Sharman

Relentless rain for the last month or so - have we not had enough? The journey in saw more of it, but just as you arrived at 10:00, magically it stopped. It was windy... very windy... probably 25mph from the west. A definite 'D' rig for Lasers and C's for the Dragon Force 65s.

Again it was decided to race perspective classes individually to save any collision damage. Two circuits of a typical triangle.

The day had a fair turnout that consisted of 11 Lasers and 7 Df65 Skippers. Not bad for a non-ideal conditions day, thus totaling 17 and 24 different individuals for the complete series.

The Lasers were off first and some were thinking maybe one lap might be enough as it was taking a while to get up to that windward mark. We had the usual serious contenders Dave F. from Kingsmill, John Sharman from Keighley and Shaun from Fleetwood. It was going to be one of these guys for sure to hold up the Trophy.

We also had a couple of guys from the Furness club, Adrian Stanton travelled in from Barrow, along with Dave Foster from Kendall. The Dragon guys also had the distant travellers, Tim Long from North Wales and John Tushingham from Keighley.

3 races for both classes were held before lunch that seemed to take ages. It wasn't raining which was a bonus and even though it was very windy, folks were starting to enjoy some good racing. The sky cleared over lunch time and remained cloudless for the rest of the day.

Race 4 for the Lasers went ahead and because we were taking a little longer to get round the course compared to the whippy little baby Dragons, 'boy can they move' it was decided to reduce to just the one lap for us. I think some of the other class were laughing, all taken in good humour.

Dave Foster thought he would alternate and try and sail his Dragon as well as the Laser, why not as he had brought both along. All the credit to him but he had his work cut out, as he was scuffling along to put his last boat away the countdown timer was off again. He did well for a minor repair as his winch line got caught up on one of his boats but still managed to throw it in to the start line.

It remained dry throughout the day for the 6 races that we had, a bit wind swept and rosy cheeked so we were all happy. Probably tested the maximum limit in wind strength for Lasers.