IOM Winter Race 12, 27th Feb 2024

Firstly, welcome to Brian it is good to have a new skipper in the fleet.
We arrived this morning to the car park even further flooded, the Forest had cordoned it off to stop potential parking in deep water – I am still scratching my head as to why anyone would park under water!
On the positive side, it wasn’t cold and it wasn’t raining, however there wasn’t any wind either. We started the first race with what I thought was a short course, however it still took a long time to complete. It was won by Martin test sailing his new boat, for a short time the boat had a 100% win record.
Following this, the wind changed direction and increased a little allowing us to get 7 races completed. There was no consistency, everyone had both good and bad results during the morning, however Hugh had slightly less of the bad races to win the day with John B second and Robin third.
Maneuver of the day went to Graham, Nigel lost contact with his boat sailing precariously close to the far bank. Graham managed to come alongside it to leewards and sheppard it back across the pond. It looked most professional, well sailed Graham.
Today was the last race of the Winter Series, congratulations to John B for winning with John T second and Robin third.
Moving onto health and safety, the Club has purchased throw lines to assist if skippers fall in the water whilst rescuing boats. These are kept in the start box. At present with the pond water level so high, the pond can be deep very close to the shore which can make it difficult to rescue boats with masts stuck in trees etc. It is recommended that a second skipper assists where a boat needs rescuing. The Class Captain will consider giving average points to that person in the event that they miss a race while helping.