Many thanks to Roger Crates for proposing a handicapped pursuit race for the 5^th Sunday of the month. We did have a good time! Roger had kindly marked out a start board for us (see photo, ready for race 9). Jen and Martyn did a trial run of the concept at the Rotherham MYC racing held at Poolsbrook on the previous day. This went well and provided some experience of this type of race organisation.

The early birds to the lake got all the gear out and Jen arrived with Martyn to sort out the handicap board for the 8 skippers, decide a course and move a couple of buoys. As no more than 4 boats were intended to start simultaneously, a short start line was employed which was also used as a downwind gate. An upwind mark was selected to suit the predominantly North-West light to moderate wind, and a spreader mark added. This course was appropriate for all eight races although the wind moved up to twenty degrees to either side of North-West from time to time.

Handicaps were initially assigned on the basis of historical results (retrieved by Jen). These provided up to a forty second advantage to the early starters. The handicaps were adjusted on a race by race basis depending mainly on performance. This was true for everyone except Dave Burke, who joined us for the day as a visitor. Poor old Dave was used as the bench mark from whom everyone else got a start and he always started on scratch! Dave seemed to relish the challenge and was always at the pin end of the line in a timely manner and in hot pursuit, usually to great effect. Starting before scratch did seem to cause timing issues for most of the competitors and the assigned advantage was often squandered! The variable wind speed and direction also provided varying levels of advantage to the early starters. Nine races were run and six different skippers won races, which is indicative of the success of this racing concept.

Martyn won the day with 17 points, so he was clearly inadequately handicapped! 5 skippers (Dave, Colin, Alan, Sam and Jen) then followed with points in the range of 22 to 25. Richard and Colin took positions 7 and 8 and didn’t have their best days for results, but both still won races.

Thank you to Jen for doing the majority of the thinking and the prep for this day. Thanks again to Roger for introducing the concept. Thank you to Dave for being our bench mark, Colin for working the results out, and thank you to the participants in general for the great spirit in which the racing was performed and the final tidy-up which was diligently and speedily achieved. We are ready for a bigger turn-out next time, and hope Mike Williams is okay as he doesn’t miss many sailing days, but unexpectedly missed today.

Martyn Aspinall

1^st July 2024