Those races were sailed in a fresh south wester. This time the direction was once again south west, but much lighter. Fleets of ten seniors, four juniors and four in the Gandalf sailed three races in cool conditions. Racing was tricky, with strange wind bends and shifts, making racing tactics difficult. The first race was longer than normal, with many boats taking over an hour to finish. The course was made a bit shorter for the subsequent races, resulting in these races being completed in a more normal 40 minutes. The wind even increased slightly (in the gusts) in race three.
The senior fleet was headed as usual by the Fireball of David Laing and Mark Dee. Their task was to put enough distance on the chasing pack of Lasers in order to win on handicap. This they succeeded in doing in the first race and third race. However in the second race, they were only able to score a fourth place. For the Lasers, in race one, John Marc Olivier established an early lead, pursued by Malcolm and Evelyn Osborne, Bill Turner and Nathan Page (on Radial). He was able to hold this lead, despite an equipment breakage to finish comfortably ahead, scoring second place in this fleet with Page in third place.
The second race saw close competition between the Lasers of Olivier and the two Osbornes, all three together at the final turning mark. Olivier was able to finish ahead over the finishing line, with Evelyn piping Malcolm to be second Laser. These three also got the overall top three positions on handicap in this race. In the final race of the day, Malcolm Osborne had the lead, but Olivier caught up in the closing stages and overtook up the final beat to win this race in Lasers, but second overall in the senior fleet. Georgou Divaris, sailing Laser 4.7 had a better race this time to score a third place in the senior fleet. Overall for the Realty Homenet Trophy, Olivier is the series winner, ahead of Divaris and Laing/Dee.
The junior fleet was sailing for the Tom's Tavern Trophy. In this fleet, the Dabchick sailed by Christopher Kennedy was able to pull away from the Optimists of James and Sean Vonk and the Tera Sport of Markos Divaris. But, as with the Fireball in the senior fleet, was he able to get sufficient distance to win on handicap? And the Divaris Tera also had to get ahead of the Optimists to feature. Unfortunately James Vonk comfortably won all three races. Markos was able to score seconds in races one and two. The Tom's Tavern Trophy for the 2013/2014 season goes to James Vonk.
The Gandalf fleet had three Lasers, a GP14 and a Mirror. Guy Dormehl on Laser was first to finish in the two races he sailed, ahead of the GP14 sailed by John and Suzi Kennedy, however neither of these sailed well enough to beat the Mirror of Di Turner, who won all three races on handicap.
The Sonnet of Dave Jones ahead of the Dabchick of Christopher Kennedy.(Photo: Jeremy Dee.)
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