It seems that the Dragon Force winter series has to be sailed in conditions of no wind! Today started that way but as the morning wore on a very light and variable zephyr allowed 4 races to be sailed. 7 skippers went home having learned that sailing requires several skills, one of which is patience.

Eleven brave souls came down to the farm to race, it could have been 14,  but 3 sensible skippers decided the wind was a tad too strong. The snow had disappeared and in fact it was a little muddy underfoot , The sun came out in fits, but the wind straight out of the north-west was biting. C rig was the order of the day, no ifs no buts, and if you left your c rig at home !?/\$?*\…..    and so  racing took place along the south bank. First out of the blocks was Dave B gbr 30 followed by Chris E, gbr 0 , there seemed to be a little confusion at the weather mark, and as always happens quite a few boats follow the leader. When the whistle blows for the briefing ,,                       ( listen up ). Darin B, gbr 92 did not make the same mistake again and went on to win the next 5 races without reply , with a variety of yachts getting 2nd place Dave gbr 30 doing best and then going on to win race 7 and 8. The breeze did not relent all morning and 9 races were sailed, as the morning wore on retirements for one reason or another took there toll and we lost 5 boats. Our thanks go to Chris Corrin who decided to stay be our race officer, and all the other guys who stayed to help when it would have been so easy to just go home. The results are below the first picture , close run thing with Darin getting result on countback .

Mick Admin

Eleven  Competitors came the line , with sunshine and a steady top suit breeze for round four of the Dragon winter series , It was cold dont get me wrong, but as long as you had your thermals in place , you had a smile on your face. first casualty before hitting the water was the lip, Mick gbr 46 always banging on about be sure your boat is ready for racing to everybody else, apparently no juice to the winch, say no more , he kindly did the scoring.  12 races were sailed from the East bank and first Bullitt of the day went to Bob gbr 58 and as time went on his consistency paid off as he was rarely out of the top three. Phil gbr 44 was sailing his yellow peril RG 65 and did well to top the order at the finish , although the RG’s are a separate class in this series, Chris gbr 74 with his new hull after the sinking three weeks ago was not quite doing enough to boss the morning and only started to come good towards the end, Ivan gbr 47 had some bad luck with his kicker snapping so had to sail with B rig, Mick gbr 14 was going well and proving his success with the I.O.M is no fluke, It was nice to see Norman , Gordon and Bert having some close races, Chaz retired after race 6 with radio problems and left for an early lunch , racing was exciting and fun to watch. and the eventual winner was of course Bob  gbr58 with Phil getting line honours ,

well done to everybody .

Bob  gbr 58 leading the way round at the wing mark

Norman gbr 179 with a minor adjustment .

Port or Starboard ???????

comon Bert, keep gbr 98 going at full speed .

Mick Admin

NEXT ROUND IS ROUND FIVE ON     SUN 15TH FEBRUARY      ROUND 5     Dragon Winter Series   No race will start after  1300 hrs