IOM Summer Series 20 July 2025

Roger Bowtle arrived early as ARO and did most of the prep for sailing – thanks Roger! Martyn (RO) and Micky Boy decided on a dog-leg course on the South bank to suit the difficult South-Easterly wind direction and some time was then spent in arranging the buoys for the seven skippers.

Adrian was struggling to get his boat functioning and Roger generously offered to share his Britpop on alternate races. Roger and Adrian also offered to alternate doing starting and finishing duties which lead to the racing going very smoothly.

We were very light on numbers for one of our prestigious IOM events with most of the top guys playing away and giving the rest of us the chance to set our sights on Micky C! Sam made a good start to achieving this by taking the first two bullets in the light winds but then slipped up with three poor races whilst Mick and Martyn both began to find some speed and Kevin took two seconds in the first three races.

The racing was tight, but all of us failed to turn in consistently good results, except Micky C. Cooperman made many rig adjustments but failed to find settings that took him beyond third place. Bryan was in the mix for most races and took a second position in race four.

The last few races after coffee were conducted in moderate rain. At least it was warm rain and it ceased raining as we finished sailing allowing the unfortunate ones (like me) to display the failings of our summer waterproofs on our inner clothing. I personally was soaked, having also sat in a puddle on the finishing chair! Not to mention the rain running down my legs into my boots.

At the end of racing Mick, Sam and Martyn had divided up the nine races with 3 wins each. Micky C was the winner with thirteen points followed by Martyn (sailing his Alioth) on 15 points and Sam just one point behind on 16 points. Close racing indeed.

A special thanks is due to Roger and Adrian for doing a large part of the set-up and strip down along with the starts and finishes. Not a cross word was heard throughout the session despite the soaking we received and nobody needed to protest Micky C.

Report by Martyn Aspinall.

20th July 2025

You can see the cumulative results HERE for the series so far , I hope .