Abington Park MYC
Six Metre Open
@
Hollowell Sailing Club
10th September 2016
REPORT BY PETER SHEPHERD
I can only appologise for the lack of pictures this time around, the weather was persistent with early on the light Southerly breeze blowing almost as predicted, except to be a bit helpfull it blew across the dam and was more a South Easterly. Geoff Earle was a most welcome visitor making the trip from Harwich & Dovercourt, it is always a pleasure to sail alongside this most enthusiastic Six metre skipper.
We took a break from the cold shower around 11:00am where the club house and tea bar were put to good use and the wind obligingly skipped 180 degrees to North Westerly during this period, we rest the course accordingly.
With the wind being so fickle and predicted to shift, in the morning we set a start/finish line in the centre of the sailing area, a shortish leg to the firstmark which truth be known if you started right on the starboard pin you could reach in one without a tack, but it was a tricky effort to keep the six moving to achieve this, a wide spreader and then early on a gate at the down wind spread far enough apart to make the choice a tricky one. The inshore looked favourite as it should have given the best run back to the upwind mark, however a few skippers took advantage of clear air and better wind further out to gain place although this did involve a couple of tacks. With the wind shifting and making the upwind leg too easy the down wind was changed to starboard rounding around both buoys pushing the fleet further out and forcing everyone to beat to the upwind mark. The second rounding of the course had a wing mark further out back to the down wind marks and home.
After the break we adjusted the course and went the other way around abonding the wing mark which shortened the course slightly. many thanks go to Abington Park members Derek lane & Tim Leese who came and assisted with start & finish line duties throughout the day.
So how did the skippers fair, when the wind was light the Tias of Keith Bell really came into it's own, so much so that Keith was able to bring home a second place overall, the boat does look a little tender in the stronger breezes but as Keith is just getting started with this yacht I am sure a bit of sail set up tweaking and familiarisation with how she reacts will help. Along with Keith's Tias the three Rococco's of Geoff Earle, Geoff Raygada & Colin Davies had a humdinger of a battle in the middle of the fleet all finishing with eleven points of each others Geoff Earle is always a tough skipper to sail against and he ended up the best of the Rococco skippers.
Paul Risdale and Peter Jackson had their own private battle at the back, which just leaves Peter Shepherd who sailed his Romanza the most consistently, by adjusting the head sail luff with slightly less tension after race two, courtesy of seeing how the Tias sails were shaping in the first couple of races, in my opinion this adjustment gave these two boats the edge on boat speed over the rest of the fleet.
Paul Risdale and Peter Jackson had their own private battle at the back, which just leaves Peter Shepherd who sailed his Romanza the most consistently, by adjusting the head sail luff with slightly less tension after race two, courtesy of seeing how the Tias sails were shaping in the first couple of races, in my opinion this adjustment gave these two boats the edge on boat speed over the rest of the fleet.