A glorious New Year's Day saw a good number of boats on the start line, ranging in size from the diminutive 'Echo' up to the awesome 'Keoma'. WSC Commodore Kathy Claydon invited CCSC Commodore Richard Bowers and his wife Debbie, former WSC Commodore Mark Bugler and his wife Rima and Rear-Commodores (House) Ray and Lynn Capp (and me) as crew, so the courtesy halyard was somewhat crowded with burgees!
A brisk offshore breeze with a clear sky provided the boats with perfect conditions, and the course used most of the inner bay, with a quick beat inshore to H mark, followed by a run out to F, another beat into P and a deep reach down to R, with a long and short beat back in and up the harbour, to finish outside the club. Kathy Claydon's 'Arcsine' led the fleet from the start, though my navigational error at R meant we were in a minority taking it to starboard (though if you take a piece of string, etc., etc....) Andy Young's 'First Instinct' was the only boat to touch the mud in the harbour, though was off again with minimum embarrassment in seconds. Deserving winner of the New Year's Day trophy was Bill Barker in 'Flair II'.
Big congratulations to 'Echo' for finishing against such a daunting fleet of bigger boats! And a big thank you to Euan McNair and Iain Jones on the committee boat.
The consensus in the bar afterwards was that it would be good if more boats were still in the water on New Year's Day, and that we need more races that use the full scope of Weymouth Bay on a breezy day. This centenary year's theme is 'more and better sailing' - watch this space for news about this year's programme.
Steve Fraser
Submitted on 2nd January 2013