Vane 36R Woodhouse Trophy at Fleetwood Model Yacht Club
by Tony Wilson 26 Jun 21:28 BST
22 June 2019
Fleetwood Vane 36R Woodhouse Trophy © Tony Wilson
The weather had started to pick up over the last few days and just around the corner was the rumour of a heat wave. 'Welcome summer'. The day was going to be testing as the wind direction wasn't going to be constant. The forecast had it written from the roadside, although the 8 mph or so could have been coming from the beach or anywhere in between.
For the five skippers to sail, the first leg was for a two point score as it looked like we could be nearly on a run, or maybe set the boat up to reach along the path and keep away from the flat spot along the sand hills.
Derek was the first to take his bye, while John sailed against David and Tony was to take on Mike. Mike let Sue do the hard work as his boat came over to the favoured bank and She battled along trying to just get it leave the wall. Tony over cooked it a bit too much as his boat left the bank and went over to his mate Bob on the far side. Sue just pipped Tony at the post. David won his leg as John hadn't quite got going yet. Tony then managed the return leg, but John and helping hand Darren lost out again to David.
David was now to sit out on a bye as team Rob and Derek secured both legs against Mike. Tony gave away the Run to John, but again won the 3 pointer. John was questioning to whether we should be sailing back down with fixed vane instead. It really was anyone's guess as we just wasn't sure from where the wind was really coming from.
Derek then stranded near the top end for a short while in the flat spot, let Tony win the Run leg. "Wow! He is human." This was the only couple of points he was going to give away. Mike still struggling dropped both lanes to David who seemed to be doing fine with his additional sprint man Eric.
After lunch it looked like the wind had got up a touch and John was starting to panic thinking he had too much sail area on his long slimline mast.. The wind had swung around and the point scoring was to be reversed. Mike was now on a bye while Derek continued to inflict more injury on John's score, and David and Tony shared their heat between them.
The last heat and it was David that lost out to Derek, and both ways. John and Mike shared this heat between them while Tony's racing was over and able to sit out and get showered.
We settled just on the one round as it looked like other lake users may have been waiting and we were happy with what we had done for the day.
Team Derek was saying they had secured three victories on their last three outings. Presumingly they are waiting for better or more fierce opposition. Well done Derek.
Results:
1 Derek Priestley 18 pts (Mate Rob W.)
2 David Foster 12 pts (Mate Eric A.)
3 Tony Wilson 11 pts (Mate Bob J.)