This Sunday's race was about as far from last Sunday's as possible, with a gentle NW breeze forecast to die away during the morning. The race team did well to get the start away after a brief AP, and all sixteen boats enjoyed a technical challenge rather subtler than last week's blow. Before the start the breeze was quite steady off the open ground of Lodmoor, but the pressure tended to shift left from time to time; it was the kind of race where watching boats in front to see the shifts proved crucial up the beat and on the first reach.
Even after a handicap review, racing in the PY class Winter Series is still too close to call, with the first three boats within a minute on corrected time; this week it was the turn of Bill Barker's 'Flair II' to beat Ricky Bruton's 'Effusion' and Nick Massey's 'Tumbarumba' in a very good turnout of eight boats.
In the IRC fleet, 'Foxed2' took an early lead, which was slowly reeled in by 'Crazeology' in the light conditions, while 'Scoline' found gold on the right-hand side of the first beat, and repeated the same trick on the second to finish well up the fleet, gaining third behind 'Crazeology' and 'Foxed2' on corrected time. Again the first three boats finished within a minute on corrected time, and a good turnout of eight boats matching the PY fleet filled the bay with spinnakers, as shown in Justin's photos.
Submitted on 3rd December 2012