See also PICTURE PAGE

4 teams of 3 skippers assembled at the Rick Pond for the annual IOM M&S District Championship. PRO Dave Andrews welcomed the teams and explained the details of team racing. The weather early on was good, sunny and a stiff 2^nd suit breeze straight down the lake. Peter Constable, who was not racing, but acted as starter and scorer, put up his notional entrance fee of £3 as a prize for a novel first race. This was with all 12 skippers on the water, strict rules about retiring if penalized by a contact, and the winner to receive the £3. Colin Trower won this race, but it gave the other skipper the opportunity to retrim their boats to suit these, not often encountered, very breezy conditions.

The team racing got off to a flying start (the photo page shows that the race starts were certainly fast and furious), and we had completed the first of the 6 race schedule by 11.20. At this point it was clear that Three Rivers were the team to beat with 3 out of 3 wins. Hampton Court green team were in second place. We completed 3 more races by a lunch break at 12.00. By this time the wind was getting up to a real blow of 25mph gusts and it was feeling cold.

We had a nice chatty lunch break out of the wind in our club house. Back to the lake at 13.00 it was very apparent that changing rigs was certain, the wind was now regular gusting over 25mph, even 30mph.

Some skippers didn’t or couldn’t change rigs and were often in trouble (see photo page) in the subsequent races. There was a small course change to respond to a shifting wind, but we then completed only the 3 remaining races of the second schedule before the now very cold wind brought some very threatening black clouds. A vote was taken to conclude racing and we only just got inside before heavy showers descended.

So we had completed 12 races and the Three Rivers team of John Male, Stan Nutchey, and Peter Popham, had won all 6 of their races to become the 2009 District IOM team Champions. In the haste to retreat from the rain we hadn’t realized that the two Hampton Court teams had tied and that we should have sailed a tie break race. Failing this we elected to do a count back of ‘winning place’ scores and HCMYC green team were given the 2^nd place.

Thanks to Dave Andrews and Peter Constable for a exhilarating day’s racing. Sailing in these very windy conditions has a certain buzz. It was a shame we had to cut it short because of the rain. DGM.