Island Sailing Club Tuesday Evening Series - Race 9
by Peter Dickson 13 Jun 2018 17:00 BST
12 June 2018
With spring tides, several shipping movements and very little wind forecast an early decision was taken to cancel the Dayboat Classes 4, 5 and 6, (Sonars, Flying Fifteens and XODs), before they had set out to race.
As all available weather forecasts showed the prospect of a 5 to 10 knot NNE breeze being imminent, (and being nearly the longest day), Handicap Classes 1, 2 and 3 were started on time down-tide to the East in the hopes that this would materialise. These boats have engines and navigation lights so could get home, avoid shipping or take others in tow if necessary.
The wind remained light but instead of filling in from the NNE it went calm with unexpected periods of SW on some parts of the course. There were many retirements, particularly from the Medium and Slow Cruisers. At 2000hrs, with little prospect of any boat reaching the finish line by the time limit, the decision was taken to abandon racing.
The Race Management Team then monitored those on the water to ensure that they returned safely to Cowes. Day Boat Classes racing under handicap were safely towed except for the Squib "Party Hat" (Claire Turner and John Corby) who proudly paddled all the way to the Cowes Corinthian YC.
Minx 3 (Jonathan Gardiner) challenged TILT Racing (Andy & Alex Moore) to a duel back to Cowes from Fever Tree to demonstrate they could complete the course, which they did with a few minutes to spare.
It was a lovely evening on the water, as the sun did eventually come out, but light weather sailing skills are hard to turn into results with Solent tides!