IOM Autumn Race 01: 3rd Sept 2024September 3, 2024Started the Autumn Season today with an “interesting” wind. Its direction typified by the photo, Nigel and myself resting our boats head to wind during the break in different directions with the two boats behind at 90 degrees to us!!
We had a northwesterly forecast and at times before the start we had a northwesterly breeze, However, the wind was all over the place with small zephyrs in random directions giving all points of sailing to all legs. There was general agreement that there could be wind at 4, so we used marks 6 2 4 for the course, a fairly short course and we managed 7 races. The racing was “exciting” with lots of places changing on all legs as random zephyrs came and went.
John M got the best of the luck, closely followed by John B and Robin. [...]
IOM Winter Race 02, 12 Dec 2023December 12, 2023Welcome to Setley on Sea, the tide is coming in and has now flooded the car park, with the present rain the tide could well get higher!! We have often said that there is a breeze in the car park and none on the pond, well soon we will be able to sail in the car park.
The weather today can only be described as “changeable”. The rain storm I met driving to the pond was horrendous, very wet, windy and with thunder and lighting. On arriving at the pond the rain stopped and the sun came out with a moderate southerly blowing down the pond – it looked idyllic. However as we approached start time the wind moderated, though still sufficient. As the morning progressed, we had everything, sun, hail, heavy rain, thunder, lightning, flat calm and a Setley gale. I did offer to abandon racing when the hail storm came through at 11:30, however the intrepid skippers voted to continue.
As far as the racing went, I couldn’t do a thing right and was tempted to lose the result sheet on the way home. As it was, congrats to John T who won the last races to win the day from John B and Martin.
I will try to organise wall to wall sunshine for next week when we will also be holding the Jobbo Round the Cans Trophy. See you then. [...]
IOM Autumn Race 05, 03 Oct 2023 – Shaw TrophyOctober 3, 2023
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. [...]
IOM Summer Race 07 : 18 July 2023July 18, 2023Fabulous racing at the pond today. We had partial sunshine, no rain and a southerly breeze that came and went and shifted at will.
The racing was very competitive with plenty of place changing as the breeze and shifts filled in in different places on the pond on each lap. There were four different race winners, and the final points were very tight.
Congratulations to John B for just winning out ahead of John M and John T. Again it was a case of consistent results winning the day. [...]
