IOM Autumn Race 05, 03 Oct 2023 – Shaw Trophy

What a day today, beautiful sunshine and a stiff breeze rustling the leaves of the trees behind us while standing on the bank. While it sounds idyllic, it wasn’t – we had a westerly! I realised we may have issues when I was contemplating setting 1 as a windward mark whale Robin was suggesting 6!. The wind was evil, of varying strengths of nothing to a bit more than nothing, it shifted in all directions, often just swirling round in circles. At times I knew there was wind as my sails were flapping, but they just would not set whichever direction the boat was pointing. At one point my boat got a gust from up high, it broached then got entangled with an adjacent boat. I think that was the only bit of wind I had all day. I would have happily lost the race results on the way home!
To be fair, everyone found the conditions challenging, and the racing was quite close. Apart from Robin who seemed to have a hotline to the clouds, winning the day with ease, the next places were relatively close with John B just beating Hugh to second place.