DF65 Race 4 South Lake Series
Meteorological spring might not start until the 1st March but this Saturday it felt like Spring had arrived – sunny with a fairly constant wind direction. Due to a shortage of Bone Cement Richard Filer’s hip replacement was cancelled at the last moment, so he acted, with stick in one hand and score board in the other as Race Officer for the day,
The Df65 Class is going from strength to strength with three new recruits Jamie Wilson, Jack Skew (aged 7) and his father and coach Tom Skew joining us today.
The forecast was 16 – 18kts with gusts of 22- 25kts from the West going South Westerly and dropping. For those who had not listened to the forecast and just looked at the lake A+ rigs were the order of the day for those that had listened A of B rigs were preferred. So, we had the strange sight of three different rigs – who was going to be correct?
Race 1 saw Andy Smith (A+) having a commanding lead at the penultimate turning mark before tacking on to starboard for the 1st part of the final beat. This tactic was followed by Colin Cooper who was lying 2nd. Andy covered Colin all the way to the finish line but unfortunately, they both failed to notice Jamie Wilson who had gone the other way up the beat and just crossed in front of Andy to take the win.
In the 2nd race Andy again was in the lead having a battle with Ian Proctor when they were both hit by a gust on the run which caused Andy to do some spectacular acrobats and Ian’s servo to jump gears. Colin took the win closely followed by Alec Powell in second place – the first of 6 2nd places for Alex.
After a mass rush to change the majority of A+ rigs to A rigs the third race commenced and it was a close battle all the way round between Alex & Ian for the win with Ian just taking it on the line. Further down the fleet you Jack Skew was showing the way round to a our “Most Improved DF65 Sailor of 2025” – Peter Bird – who to be fair said he was having trouble concentrating as he had “Man Flu”!!!!
The rest of the days racing followed similar formulas with Colin winning race 5 and Andy Chapman breaking Alex’s run in the 7th race by coming 2nd.
The wind did gradually swing more South Westerly, giving the start line more and more Port End Bias. Colin was the only one to take notice of this and made two perfect Port Hand starts crossing the rest of the fleet who had been fighting over the pin end of the line!!
Overall, Ian took 1st place with Alex 2nd a7 Colin 3rd. Despite his “Man Flu” Peter managed to just hold off Jack who, did extremely well seeing it was only his 3rd time sailing a DF65.
