RC Laser Autumn Series at Fleetwood Model Yacht Club - Week 2
by Tony Wilson 12 Jan 17:51 GMT
4 December 2022
A radio-controlled Laser ready to launch © Tony Wilson
Light cloud and a moderate breeze of 12 MPH from an Easterly direction - 'That'll do'. This was just one of the local forecasts for Sunday.
One week on and we had a good turnout, with a perfect direction for a good day's sailing. John Armstrong having travelled the furthest had picked the right week, as last week had been pretty marginal and challenging.
Some took two sails with them to the start, as it was a bit of a walk back to the car from the far end starting line, that was well past midway of the lake.
Derek was checking out the running of (GBR 750) another's Laser, for someone else and during one race snapped a somewhat brittle aged gooseneck on his favoured choice 'B' rig.
Smiffy had painted his Laser hull in Battleship grey to hopefully intimidate a couple of the skippers into submission, but we weren't buying it. He did win a race mind you, but that was down to Derek's magical trim setting. But then after that, he fiddled with it again.
With a nice plumb start line across the lake, we had very little complication in course setting and adjustments were easy. All the buoys were set in a nice easy pattern, placed neatly around the lake.
The races were of good size and a finish after one and a half laps towards the centre of the lake, after negotiating the well balanced leeward gate for the final beat.
By the end of the day we had plenty of good competitive racing and position changing, with Shaun only having half of the wins this time. Up into the afternoon Derek had slowly been accumulating water in his hull, but had still managed some impressive wins.
The bottom gate seemed just about right, as this could certainly affect your finishing order and then for the closing final finish we sailed to the top end of the lake on, the last race.
The grass bank was awash with multiple sail sizes throughout the day, as most had nearly emptied their sail bags of their contents.
Second, third and fourth place were separated by just 2 points, that's how close some of the racing had been.
A good day with plenty of excellent racing for the ten Skippers in fourteen super races, what's there not to like about the Laser?
Results:
1 Shaun Holbeche 10 pts
2 Derek Priestly 22 pts
3 Tony Wilson 23 pts
4 Steve mattison 24 pts