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Event 3 - Thames
Estuary Y.C.
The
4th and penultimate event of the Dart 16 Traveler's Trophy took place on
13-14th Sep at Thames Estuary Yacht Club. Day One started in beautiful
sunshine but unfortunately very little wind. Despite this 9 boats took to
the water and sailed (some even paddled) in an effort to get up tide of the
start line. Our own particular technique involved holding on to a marker
post until the 5 minute gun sounded. Congratulations have to go to XX and
XX who managed to go afloat minus their bungs, we could only assume they
anticipated a strong sea breeze setting in and wanted the additional ballast;
needless to say they were disappointed!
The
conditions made success in racing largely down to spotting / drifting into the
sporadic wind patches and knowing where the strongest tides were (or more
importantly (weren’t). This was admirably displayed by Jackie Thomas and
Di Hart, who managed to sail from 4th to 1st in a matter of seconds within
meters of the front 3 boats, to much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the
latter. Race Two saw a change in direction of the tide, which meant that
rather than trying to avoid sailing over the line early the challenge became
getting over it at all; in the end approx half the fleet retired having never
made it over. By the end of the day, despite the flukey conditions, Nick
and Tom Hart managed to assert their usual dominance on the series with three
1st places, proving that it wasn’t all down to sheer luck in the light winds.
Saturday
evening saw a sumptuous curry buffet laid on a the T.E.Y.C. clubhouse which was
gratefully received by all and washed down with dehydrating juice in an effort
to shed weight in the anticipation of further light winds on Sunday.
Racing
on Sunday however proved to be the sublime to the extreme with a dramatic
increase in the winds and gusty conditions meaning crews anticipating another
pleasant days sunbathing were sadly disappointed. We were also joined by a
further boat from T.E.Y.C. bring the total compliment to 10. Reaching to
the downwind mark provided an exhilarating ride for all and capsizes resulted in
the obvious disadvantage to those didn’t manage to stay the right way up. In
particular Rob Hamilton and Tyler Playford, who’s impromptu swim following a
savage gust on the upwind leg sent them from 3rd to 7th place in race 4.
After
an excellent event results were as follows:
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