A bright sunny day with a light south westerly greeted the 22 skippers at Lincoln; Bacon butties were consumed in fine style cooked with meticulous precision and loving care by Jan Cooper and Jill Burke our resident chefese’s in the galley.  Briefing followed and a long course was set on the East Bank with a good long start line, as the fleet were good to go as a single fleet. Stephen Haywood started well with a fine win in his Cheinz, closely followed by John Tushingham in a borrowed V9 and then Chris Elliott with his Brit Pop. Race two and Darin Ballington clicked into top gear to take the win and the next  four races leaving all in his wake, John Tushingham just hanging on to stay in contention. Lunch was called after race eight and 2 choices of soup and lots of French bread were served up by the club and super chef Jan, it helped to take the chill off the mid December morning.

Darin Ballington obviously had a little too much soup or the wrong flavour because races nine and ten his performance took a bit of a dip, Craig Raistrick, new to the sport and new to the Lincoln club came in with two bullets’ sailing his MX 14. Racing all through the fleet was fast and furious, and because the windward mark was a little further out than we would have wanted , if you were not round in the first  five it could get a little congested and heated, and although there were a few shouts of “Protest” everybody was well behaved and completed the penalty turns if required “ almost “.

Looking through the fleet a number of skippers improved during the day, and the general feeling was a good days racing was had by all. Congratulations to our winner Darin, and runner up John , but in truth congratulations must go to all the skippers for the way they conducted themselves on the day, with 22 yachts on the start line it can’t have been easy.

Thanks to  all the helpers at Lincoln, Jan and Jill in the galley especially , Ivan and Gordon who manned the finish line, Phil H who helped out a lot and Alan who brought the French bread along, If I have forgotten anybody sorry, We all know the OOD who kept up the pace rather like a sergeant Major, and enabled us to get in a good number of races.

RESULTS

       Please note as this was also Lincoln Clubs i.o.m winter series round two, a seperate series of results will be posted later in the week .

A few pics of the day ,

The wonderful Jan who manned the galley for us all on Sunday

Turkey for Xmas ,,, well done Craig

Guess somebody was over at the start !!!!

All good fun on the bank .