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St Andrews 2007 |
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St Andrews 7th - 8th
July
2007 Two visiting Europes turned up - Val Ludlow from Port Edgar and Brian Finnie from Forfar. Local Europe sailor Heather Ross elected not to sail, after the forecast for the weekend promised winds of force 5 gusting 6. However, on Saturday this wind strength did not materialise and the wind, though strong at times, also dropped during the day before picking up again. Combined with a massive shift in direction before the second race this gave Race Officer Julie Frankl some headaches as the day developed. The low turnout meant that the visitors joined the handicap class for racing, with the traveller results extracted. Race 1 The course was to be triangular with marks left to starboard. Val and Brian both chose to start in the middle of a short line and the entire fleet arrived almost together at the first mark not far upwind. Much of the next leg was spent looking for the wing mark, which eventually turned up almost dead downwind with the second reach being more of a spreader leg to the leeward mark. For all this time Val kept ahead of Brian until the gusting upwind leg when Brian overtook and held the lead over Val to the finish. Race 2 As the fleet waited for the second start, the wind dropped and continued a shift to the right which had started during the closing stages of the first race. The RO judged that this was to be only temporary and elected to leave the course and the start line unchanged on the expectation that the south westerly would return in short order. As it happened this did not materialise until much later, leaving the second race entirely dependent on the start with a reach to the first mark and reaching legs thereafter for a further three laps. At the start both Brian and Val kept to the leeward side of the pack at the committee boat. Val got away cleanly but Brian had approached too early and dropped too far to leeward in his effort to avoid being OCS. Val led the fleet to the first mark and stayed in front until just before the final leeward mark where the leading Laser planed past. Brian followed behind the remaining Lasers with little hope of catching Val in the procession. Race 3 With the wind returning to the south west and strengthening, race three started into a short beat for the mark. Brian this time made the perfect leeward start and took advantage of the southerly shifting breeze to cross the fleet to the starboard lay line for a conservative fetch to round the mark ahead of the rest. Downwind, Brian had to fend off a blanket of sails and by the leeward mark Val had pulled ahead. However a strong gust hit as Val and Brian approached to round the mark in close succession, causing Val to leave it wide and letting Brian cut inside to steal back the lead. In the now much stronger conditions Val struggled on the upwind legs and despite recovering ground on each downwind leg this was never enough to get back in touch. Race 4 Sunday brought a forecast and this time a reality of strong winds. These remained consistently south westerly for the race period although there were significant shifts. The courses were again triangular with marks to starboard. The reaches were this time true reaching legs but the start line for Race 4 was noticeably biased to starboard. Both Europes misjudged the line and were OCS. Val responded fastest to the recall and recovered to round the windward mark with the leaders while Brian, having left his return far too late, was left to follow the fleet. Now it was Val's turn to have a wall of sail cloth behind but with the wind off the quarter there was no serious blanketing effect and at the leeward mark she still had a significant lead. On the upwind leg Brian was steadily closing the gap until he was knocked flat in a large gust. By omitting to uncleat the mainsheet on his way over the side, Brian had ensured that it was going to be very difficult to right the boat and after several unsuccessful attempts called in outside assistance, leaving Val to chase the Lasers home. Race 5 For Race 5 the pin mark had been moved forward to take the bias out of the line. Again Val started by the committee boat while Brian took a place further to leeward and used the first shift to cross the fleet to get to the right. This turned out not to be ideal as the wind went round left again on the lay line, but Brian still rounded the mark ahead of the main pack with only the leading Laser in front. The next two reaching legs became processions until approaching the leeward mark where Brian once again was knocked over by a gust while looking behind to check on Val. This time without the mainsheet cleated he righted the boat quickly but then spent much time disentangling shock cord entwined clematis style around the main sheet. Meanwhile Val planed past to disappear up the windward leg with a lead she maintained until the finish one lap later. Summary Val deservedly took the event and now leads Brian two to one in the series. With the next and final traveller at her home base of Port Edgar on the tidal Forth Estuary in September, Val now looks well set to be this year's trophy winner. Meanwhile, at the St Andrews regatta, Val's performance gave her not only the Europe Traveller but the silverware for the regatta overall, with Brian placed third to complete a good showing for the Europes. Overall Results
Brian Finnie GBR367 |
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