Club Regatta 22nd July 2007 Twenty boats sailed at Great Yarmouth and Gorleston Sailing Club's Regatta day on Sunday on a day with no rain and even the occasional glimpse of the sun! A no discard series of three races was held in the morning followed by a one hundred minute pursuit race in the afternoon. The mornings races took place in a shifty light to moderate Easterly breeze and all were characterised by congested mark roundings and close boat for boat racing. Race one was held over a windward/leeward course and the Laser of regular visitor Simon Beckett made the best of the conditions to win from the RS400 of Richard Brown/Jenny Butler who were followed by the Fireball of Veronica Falat/Ben Falat. Race two which utilised a triangular course was won by the Falats ahead of the Lasers of Matthew Frary and Beckett. Race 3 run over a trapezoid course was again won by the Falats who beat the Fireball of David Houghton/John Symonds who in turn were ahead of the Laser of Frary. The final tally of points for the mornings races gave the winners bottle of wine to the Falats with bottles for second & third going to Beckett and Frary respectively. After lunch and a short wait for the sea breeze to fill in from the South the club ran its pursuit race with boats being started from the beach according to their handicap with the slowest boat a Flash starting one hundred minutes before the finish and the fastest boats the Formula 18 cats starting a mere sixty one minutes before the finish. Once at sea the boats sailed around a large square course until the finish when in theory all the fleet should finish simultaneously. As the breeze steadily built there were several capsizes and retirements with the new single-handed FX1 trapeze/spinnaker cat of Tom Quayle providing some entertaining moments for the committee boat! The race team monitored the position of all the boats in the fleet on the race course for the duration of the race motoring alongside the eventual leader the Fireball of the Falats and finishing them when the one hundred minutes had elapsed. The final positions of the rest of the fleet were noted and second place was awarded to the RS400 of Brown/Butler with the borrowed RS300 of Martin Brown taking the third slot. Regatta Race 1 (20) Laser (Simon Beckett); RS400 (Brown/Butler); Fireball (Falat/Falat). |