After a fantastic weekend of IOM Sailing Lincoln Radio Sailing Club says farewell to the IOM Fleet. (For the time being anyway!)

A full report can be found on the IOM Nationals Page (HERE) and we hope to include some photos as they come in.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the event a success for the club.

Click HERE for the Nationals webpage

What a treat of a day! Jen and Martyn filled in for Tim as ODs on a day that started off a little cooler than the last few, but the clouds thinned to provide warmth from the sun and the breeze did not disappoint! Roger was at the water early and did all the initial setting up which gave us plenty of time to assess the course requirements in a roughly WSW breeze which blew at an angle to the South bank. The South bank was chosen for racing and a single beat, spreader and downwind gate course was selected. This lasted us for the entire session, despite some interesting changes in the wind strength and direction. Roger and Jen efficiently laid the buoys to Martyn’s directions and a prompt start was made with nine skippers, all on ‘A’ rigs.

Richard Jutsum started out like he really meant business and stormed the first race. He was only just beaten by Sam and then Martyn in races two and three before a blip in his results followed by disaster striking with the failure of his winch elastic. This was soon fixed, but Richard oddly didn’t find form again. In the meantime, Martyn was cashing in with a couple of wins and Colin H found his mojo and became a front-runner after race two. Sam Parker too was in hot contention, and was frequently at the front. Jen finally found her settings (a bit late) on race five with a dramatic improvement in results. Kevin was sailing fast but somehow managed to lose his positions during racing.  

By the coffee break, the competition had become fierce, often with little separation between boats at the finish line; and this was after two and a half laps! Roger Bowtle was thrilled by a win on race seven and reckons to be dining out on that for a while. Well done Roger! He then graciously took on most of the start line duties by choice! Colin Toll was not drumming up top finishing results but was a contender in the thick of it, and thoroughly enjoying himself, as were we all. Just a quick note here to acknowledge Alan who unfortunately suffered electrical problems and only competed in the first race.

We didn’t know it at the time, but the final winning result between Colin H and Martyn was down to the last couple of races. Colin compiled the results in HMS as usual and was the first to discover that Martyn’s final two wins had sealed the day. Colin promptly sent his congratulations!

We had a great day! The sportsmanship was top notch. The course worked well. The wind played ball. We got a sun tan. Great fun, just as it should be, and everybody acknowledged that. Looking forward to the next round!

Report by Martyn Aspinall

Results compiled by Colin Helliwell

I.O.M Extended days racing at Lincoln SUNDAY 6th April . This will be your last chance to have some great race’s prior to the 2025 I.O.M National Championships held at Lincoln , always great racing, If you fancy it just leave a comment on the MYA Downwind FaceBook page .

Not to late to enter, The 2025 IOM National championships at Lincoln over the Easter weekend, Get your self entered HERE , best make it snappy cos entry could well close on Monday, and you would not want to miss out would you .

DF 95 open event, “The Martin Lambert & Absent friends trophy“.” 11th May , this is definitely a date you don’t want to miss if you are a keen DF 95 racer Entry will be going up on the MYA site soon.