RACE REPORT 4 October 2025
And after what seemed to be at least two months of horrible wind and weather we were back sailing on Saturday in near perfect conditions, mid-twenties and a 10 knot breeze to keep most of us going for the day.

Early bird sailors in division 1 were Manfred, Peter E and John Walter on full rig Lasers with Nate sailing a Radial. In division 2 Sabres were sailed by your scribe, Tony C, Ollie D, Lucy and Billie.

In division 1 John, who is maturing with age, belied his years and defeated Manfred and others in both races. He was 35 seconds up on Manfred who led Peter E by a just under a minute with Nate a minute and a half back in race 1. In race 2 he was 45 seconds up on Manfred with Nate, getting ahead of Peter E, two minutes back. Peter was 22 seconds behind Nate.

Division 2 had your scribe, who is showing his years, failing to finish as what breeze there was in mid-afternoon deserted him within 50 metres of the finish line. He sat there and drifted home, never crossing the line. Ahead of him Ollie finished 4 minutes ahead of Tony with Lucy 3 minutes back. Billie trailed her by 45 seconds. Actually your scribe holds Lucy to account as he port tacked ahead of her at the start; she claimed starboard but the scribe was pretty sure he was clear, and Lucy might have thought so as well after the race, but after a lap your scribe thought it might be wise to put in a precautionary 720 turn. This lost a lot of distance at a vital time and left your scribe tantalisingly short approaching the finish line, which was never reached.

Ollie completed the second race as the sole Sabre.

We were delighted to have Zeth Copland down from Wagga for the sailing and other things. Apparently, there was a public holiday in NSW on Monday, some type of other football final it seems gave him a chance. We were able to put him to good use as he ran the race with Peter V, enabling Peter E to sail. Glen ran the crash boat while Anne organised the times while Julie worked tirelessly in the kitchen. Thanks to all.

Coming up:

Saturday 11 October 2025.
1400 Ozone series continues.

With no sailing over the winter your scribe had a bit of spare time which he put to use by borrowing a couple of books from the Club so he could learn to navigate. Here are some of the things he learnt:
To estimate distance run; drop a cork off the bow and time it to the stern. Then: speed (knots) = length of boat (metres) x 1.94 divided by the time in seconds. Then: distance run (sea miles) = speed (knots) x time (hours)
I was going to test this out on Saturday as I drifted near the finish, but I forgot to put a cork in the boat.