The Scottish championships were held this year at Helensburgh Sailing Club over the weekend of 11/12th August at the club’s EMM August regatta. There was a turnout of 10 boats, 8 from HSC plus Pied Piper from Cove and Rhapsody from Kip. The forecast for the weekend was not very promising a lot of rain and not much wind.
Saturday race one started with an easterly F1-2 and Rhapsody announced their intention with a good win from Scrupples with Peshwa 4 taking 3rd.The wind for race 2 swung to the south F2 and again Rhapsody sailed a perfect race to take a second win again with Scrupples coming 2nd and Pied Piper 3rd. For race 3 the wind stayed in the south and at last Pied Piper showed what she can do with an excellent win from Rhapsody 2nd and Firebird 3rd.
Sunday started with the wind from the SW F2 and Pied Piper, who by now were sailing excellently in the challenging conditions because of the windshifts and especially the often crowded rounding of the leeward mark. Race 4 was won by Pied Piper from Scrupples and Firebird 3rd.
Race 5 again proved to be decisive for Pied Piper as she won again from Scrupples with Rhapsody 3rd. This meant that going in to the final race any one of 3 boats could have won the championship with Pied Piper on 6pts, Rhapsody 7pts and Scrupples on 8pts. Rhapsody and Pied Piper were both determined to take the title as they fought the whole way until the wind died, tried to come back from the NE turning the run into a beat, but it eventually returned from the SW F2-3 bringing the whole back of the fleet down on the leaders. It was Pied Piper who managed to hold off all of these challengers and finished 1st again with Peshwa 4 taking 2nd and Firebird 3rd.
I know this report sounds like there were only three boats in it but the racing was very close and in the most part enjoyable.
Overall, given the conditions the race officer, Bobby Lennox, and his team did a wonderful job in getting in 6 races and turning them round very quickly.
Congratulations have to go to Alan Harper and his crew for a deserved victory and to Chris Tait and his crew but one has to feel sorry for Douglas Paton and his who on Saturday sailed brilliantly but on Sunday did not get any of the breaks necessary to win in conditions like these. They are young however and I am sure they will be back to take the title soon.
Thanks go to all those who turned out and made this a very good weekends racing. The recommendation I will be making to the club is that for an event like this in future there should be a second leeward mark although I know this can present problems as well.
Results
Race1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 Total pts Net pts POS
Pied Piper (4) 3 1 1 1 1 11 7 1
Scrupples 2 2 4 2 2 4 16 12 2
Rhapsody 1 1 2 (7) 3 7 21 14 3
Firebird (6) 5 3 3 4 3 24 18 4
Peshwa 4 3 4 (8) 5 5 2 27 19 5
Off Quay 5 6 7 4 (10) 8 40 30 6
Red Hot Poker (8) 7 6 6 6 5 38 30 7
Fiddlesticks 7 8 5 8 8 (10) 46 36 8
Random FFD (10) !0 9 9 7 6 51 41 9
Fingal 9 9 (10) 10 9 9 56 46 10
Peter Booth, Firebird