Clevedon Sailing Club Regatta
by Martin Gibson 10 Jun 2018 20:27 BST
9 June 2018
Clevedon Sailing Club Regatta © Mike Batchelor
The sun shone for this year's Clevedon Regatta and after a run of weekends with too little or too much wind there was a reasonable NE light breeze.
Race Officer Tony Cherry set a figure of eight course for the first race and the boats got away with a clean start towards the Pier before a long broad reach to the first seamark. Robin Goff (D Zero) took the lead from the start closely followed by Martin Gibson (Laser). The long offwind legs suited Ian Hotchkiss and Andy Black (505) with their large spinnaker eventually overtaking Gibson to finish second over the water but well down the fleet on handicap.
The course was changed for race 2 to a 'P' shape with a dead run along the shore from the Bandstand to Pumphouse marks before beating back towards the Pier. Once again Goff, Hotchkiss/Black and Gibson lead the fleet followed Chris cooper (Laser), Mark and Rachael Elliott (RS200) and Stuart and Amy Turner and Mike Mcgloughlin and Trevor Baker (Visions).
The wind picked up towards the end of the race 2 but unfortunately dropped during race 3 which saw another course change to a rectangular in the bay. Once again Goff and Gibson lead the fleet but with long beats back along the shore against the tide, which had changed, the D Zero steadily pulled away to open up commanding lead.
Overall Results:
1st Robin Goff (D Zero)
2nd Martin Gibson (Laser)
3rd Chris Cooper (Laser)