MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers 3 at Kinghorn Loch

The Scottish District International One Metre T3 event took place on Kinghorn Loch on Saturday 15th October hosted by Kinghorn Radio Sailing Club. The race team was comprised of Richard Ennos as the Race officer with Stuart Teasdale assisting and boatman, Malcolm Durie was the Event Secretary and scorer whilst David Marrs, Hutch Grant and Tony Mitchell handled the start, finish and observing.

Richard Ennos welcomed the twelve skippers to the event and gave an overview of the setup for the days racing. He outlined the course and introduced the race team to the competitors. The competitors had a quite a range of IOM designs racing (BritPop!, Buzz I, Buzz III, Cheinz, Corbie 1, Kantun 2, Lintel MMX, Lintel, MX, Odyssey and Zig-Zag), with three wooden hulls and the others fiberglass. We had competitors from around Scotland representing six clubs: Aberdeen, Greenock, Kinghorn, Levenhall, Paisley and Tayside.

The course for the event was a windward-leeward with the start line at the east end of the Kinghorn Loch. The westerly beat ended in a starboard rounding of the windward and spreader marks. The downwind run was then sailed back to the east with a starboard rounding of the leeward mark. There were two laps of this course with the finish line on a beat near the middle of the course.

MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers 3 at Kinghorn Loch - photo © Malcolm Durie

The weather was a bit damp at first but the rain stopped and it brightened up by just after 11.00am. The wind was a strong and gusty breeze from the SSW which gave some problems for the skippers who had all bar one started on their A Rigs. The first three races were very lively with skippers having issues at times with the gusts of wind. Race #1 was won by Brian Summers followed by Ian Dundas and Bob Wilson. In contrast, Brian had problems in Race #2 which was won by fellow Tayside club member Colin McGinnis followed by Richard Rowan and Sandy Mackay. Richard followed-up his 2nd place by winning Race #3 followed by Brian and Sandy Mackay.

After Race 3 there was a pause for skippers to change to their smaller B rigs to help make the yachts more controllable in the conditions. After the change to the B rigs, the boats behaved better down wind and there was very competitive racing with boats changing places throughout the field. Race #4 was won by Davie Stewart followed by Sandy Mackay and Bob Wilson although, for various reasons, four boats did not finish this race.

Races #5 to Race #12 were dominated by Brian Summers who recorded wins in every race except Race #7 in which he came 2nd to Richard Rowan who scored five second places in this period of the event. During the afternoon a few of the skippers changed back to their A rigs as the gusts became less frequent.

MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers 3 at Kinghorn Loch - photo © Malcolm Durie

There was very close racing throughout the event with five different skippers recorded a win, seven skippers scored a 2nd place and nine skippers scored a 3rd place. It was also noteworthy that there were representatives from six Scottish District clubs with a good mix of new skippers to the Scottish District IOM Travellers events as well as a mix of different wooden and fibre glass IOM designs.

At the end of the event, eighteen races had been sailed. Brian Summers was 1st with a score of 21 points having won ten of the races followed closely by Richard Rowan with a score of 44 points who won two races and came second in seven races. Stewart Campbell was 3rd with a score of 65 points.

Overall Results:

A sunny conclusion for the MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers 3 at Kinghorn Loch - photo © Malcolm Durie