IOM Winter Series Round 2, 18th October 2026

The wind duly arrived from a Northerly direction today, as predicted, making course setting difficult. With Tim unable to take up his RO duties, Darin rose to the occasion and was out in the boat and busy experimenting with the buoy positions for a suitable course before 9am. Thank you Darin.

An inventive course was set that only required use of the South-West quadrant of the lake, with three beats that required very little skipper bank-walking. This worked well until coffee time was called, by which time Neil had scored a single win and Darin had embarked on a string of first positions. The other top few positions were shared amongst several sailors in wind conditions that were hard to read.

Over the break, Darin was again out in the boat laying a more traditional South bank course to accommodate a changing wind that had veered more Easterly. The wind continued to be challenging in both windspeed and direction, the more-so as skippers attempted to find an approach to the windward mark. The ‘approach’ was typically dictated by the wind changes and there were numerous positional changes and very mixed fortunes on this leg of the course.

The only two skippers who produced consistent results on the day were Darin and Rob. They took first and second positions overall. Their consistency was quite astonishing considering the erratic nature of the wind. Kevin, Neil and Martyn took single race wins, whilst Mick and Colin came close to doing the same. Richard finished the day on a ‘high’ with a second place in the last race, whilst Jen unfortunately struggled all day.

Although this was a difficult day for sailing, it was characterised by the good-natured approach of the skippers. No harsh words were heard and penalties were taken with grace. The sun shone, and what can better than spending time with like-minded people in the beautiful surroundings of our fantastic club?

Report by Martyn Aspinall