MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers 2 at Paisley Model Yacht Club

Twelve skippers from throughout Scotland gathered at Paisley on a dullish Saturday morning for the second Scottish Travellers event of the season. Six Scottish clubs were represented. Up to eight different boat designs were entered, ranging from examples of the latest plastic printed boats to both venerable and latest design wooden hulled boats, with a couple of BritPops! and one now fairly old Bantock Topico design.

The initial racing conditions could safely be described as tricky, not only for the competitors but also for the race team. When racing started on time at 11:00 hours, the wind strength was generally very light and patchy coming generally from the northern end of the pond. A good course laid by the race team about 20 minutes prior to first race turned out to be unsatisfactory because the wind had swung by more than 30 degrees.

This continued to be situation through the morning - a reasonable course would be laid but by the time the start took place, the windward leg would be biased to either to one side or to the other. The wind strength continued to be very light with large holes, local puffs and big changes in direction. It was very difficult to read and even more difficult to maintain top scores.

Scottish District IOM Travellers at Paisley - photo © David Bell

So, the results for the morning session of five races show that all the top skippers had a mixture of very good and relatively poor results. Ian Dundas, Brian Summers, Richard Ennos were at the top of the score sheet, whilst Simon Thomson was close behind with a set of four good scores out of the five races. Four skippers shared the race wins, with Richard Ennos getting 2 wins and Robert Rooney, Ted Johnston and Brian Summers on 1 win each. Ian Davidson had a really good first race managing to finish in second place.

Over lunch, the wind direction started to move into the north-west with more strength in the wind but still with continual changes in direction and varying strength. The races were also kept quite short in length, with the consequence that getting a poor start or going a little bit in the wrong direction or falling into a light patch on the first beat would prove almost impossible to recover from thereafter.

Scottish District IOM Travellers at Paisley - photo © David Bell

Frequently a number of boats would all arrive together at the first windward mark (which provided an entertaining spectacle for the finishing team). Only towards the end of the day's sailing did the wind strength and consistency improve to the extent that the day's racing finished with longer and more satisfying races.

With the conditions becoming arguably less difficult, the afternoon racing showed that the more experienced skippers started to dominate the front of the fleet. A further eleven races were held and the score sheet shows Ian Dundas achieving three 1st places, with Brain Summers, Robert Rooney and Gordon Allison getting two 1st places and finally Richard Ennos and Simon Thomson each getting a single 1st place.

Ian Dundas wins the Scottish District IOM Travellers at Paisley - photo © David Bell

A total of sixteen races were held which meant that three discards applied. At the end of the day, Ian Dundas's counting scores showed very good consistency resulting in him winning the event with a final score of 37 points. Brian Summers came second with 41.3 points. Richard Ennos came third on 46 points, closely followed by Simon Thomson in fourth on 47 points.

Having noted that the sailing was not what one would call spectacular, one aspect of the day was really superb and that was the lunch laid on by Lady Graze Catering who is a local specialist charcuterie, graze board and afternoon tea caterer. Truly scrumptious.

Race team: Richard Rowan (RO), Cameron Darroch (Scorer), John McVicar and Arthur Black (Starting team), Jim Boyle and June McLaren (Finishing team) and YT Chow (Assistant to RO).

Scottish District IOM Travellers at Paisley - photo © David Bell

Overall Results: