Davis Has The Winning Solution

Last Saturday 2 April, early in the morning, a team of members helped launch the Gunfleet Sailing Club Rescue Boat in order to put all the permanent race marks back on station.  Storm Katie had brought most of them ashore but with a lot of support from Club members they were all, once again, bobbing about ready for the 2016 sailing season.

After the previous week’s stormy weather preventing any sailing, it was almost the perfect conditions last Sunday 3 April for Gunfleet Sailing Club’s first race in its Spring Series.  The sun shone down from blue skies and, as the competitors eagerly rigged on the wonderful new beaches, there was a pleasant force three to four southerly wind blowing.  Sadly, as the boats launched and sailed up and down the line waiting for the “off” so the wind dropped a little.  In a clean start the boats stemmed the ebbing tide as they headed, close hauled, down the coast to the St. Michael’s buoy.  Once round this it was a reach back to the Eastcliff mark before heading out, on a beat, to the Seaward buoy.  At this early stage Ken Potts had pulled away in his RS600, whilst slightly further back there was quite a battle going on in the Laser fleet; Matthew Gough holding his fellow competitors at bay whilst Robert Lockett pushed hard to close the gap.  After Seaward it was a dead run to AWS before a beat back to Seaward, a broad reach to the Kingscliff buoy and then close hauled back to the line.  During the first lap the wind continued to fall away until it was just 5 – 6 mph, coupled with a wind shift, making very slow going when battling a strengthening tide.  Not put off by this Tom and Ed Philpot lead the slow fleet in their Topaz and valiantly chased after the tail end of the Lasers.  Yvonne Gough, in her Laser, drew closer and closer to Lockett, but was unable to catch her husband, who was hot on the heels of Paul Davis in his Solution.  With the breeze getting still lighter the competitors were all relieved to see the shorten course flag hoisted, no-one more than Davis who took the winning gun in a closely fought first race of the season.

Results – Spring Series 1:

1. Solution – Paul Davis
2. Laser – Matthew Gough
3. RS600 – Ken Potts