Multihull Series Meeting Race 5

Race report: Mike Dann

Today had a great turn out with seven boats on the water, including a potential new member sailing a bright pink catamaran. We all thought it looked familiar, then remembered the last time we had seen this boat was strapped to the top of an Austin Healey Sprite and painted black! It has changed hands a few times since then and is suiting its new paint job – it was lovely to welcome Rob to our team and we hope he’ll join us in more races.

The weather was cloudy, with the wind from the north at ten knots gusting twenty knots. It made for a nippy day but with the stronger winds, we managed to keep warm sprinting up and down the lake.

Many skippers got to the water early for some practise with their number two rigs, only to make a hasty return to the club house to change down to number three! Mike, Paul and Andy were trialling Mike’s new masthead floats, designed to reduce the drag from the usual spherical ones and they seemed to make a difference. They will continue to trial these in the next few meetings.

Racing was very close today with several people leading in various positions around the course. As always on a windy day, the lead changed numerous times with a high number of capsizes. Many hulls were flown, multiple bumps up the rear, a few leaks, a superb four boat pile up (Mike’s fault) and a spectacular capture of the number five buoy by Mervyn.

It was fantastic to see so many members of the public watching and taking photos today. We hope they enjoyed the show!!! Nigel Brown also paid us a visit and was seen thoroughly enjoying Mike’s catamaran, time to get a multihull Nigel!

Ten races were completed, with many being a close call on the finish line.

The results were as follows:

1^st Mike Dann – 9 points

2^nd Peter Fothergill – 22 points

3^rd Andy Cleal – 23 points

4^th Paul Edwards – 24 points

5^th Mervyn Cook – 27 points

6^th John Smith – 48 points

7^th Rob Lyne 61 points

After the official racing Andy, Mike, Paul and Peter decided to swap boats and have some friendly racing. This proved to be very interesting and a lot of fun. It was a great way to compare different designs and concepts and to share ideas for future developments.

I will upload the photos from today to the usual Facebook page – Google search ‘Mini 40 Multihulls’!