Today the fleet’s results were split into two – the gold fleet racing for the Sir Ralph Gore Trophy, one of the oldest and most prized trophies in dinghy racing, and the silver fleet racing for the Marlow Trophy.
Exeter Uni sailors Tom mallindine and Jamie Dick celebrate their GlOREious victory!
It's a marathon of a race. If you add together the race and the distance to and from the start line, we have sailed Dover to calais, or Lands End to Scilly today - in a Firefly! And hell it was hard work. After the first lap my arms were killing, and we still had another FIVE beats to go!!
If you followed last year’s blog you will remember how Peter and Dawn Langdon from Restronguet, veterans of the Firefly fleet, lead the Gore for about 12 miles before slipping to a heroic 2nd place on the final beat.
The sun shone all day long – ahh summer at last, we can leave our beanies at home for a change – with the wind blowing out of the SE gap between IOW and the shore. The big question was whether the sea breeze would overhaul the wind to a SW direction, and when. Otherwise it was the effect of the tides that was key to the day’s racing.
Thanks again to Hamish & Diana, who sail their XOD in the Solent, for the tidal book. Our Caravan members studied it last night and planned which way we wanted to go. Left, left, left, until around 14:20, then right. So we set our watch alarms, and sometime around 14:20 today, 3 boats in different areas of the course, tacked.
To an extent, it was all about the start. The boats that got to the left first and under the shore and out the tide, did best. We managed a spot-on pin-end start, got right over to the shore, tacked just before hitting it, and for a brief moment were leading the entire fleet to the windward mark. We arrived there a close 3rd with Steve Tylecote behind, Roger Morris just ahead of us and Tom Mallindine in the lead.
We kept Tylecote behind for a lap or so, and then clung on to 4th place for the rest of the marathon race. Meanwhile, Stevie Greaves and Alex Davey had an almighty battle up the final beat to finish 5th and 6th respectively.
Hey a bottle of champers for coming 4th can'nt be bad eh - i could get used to this!
It’s a big fleet, full of goals and dreams in each boat. The Marlow winners had a terrific battle today; our Buddies from last year Lucy and Rachael were rightly stoked with their 2nd place Marlow result, while our Buddies this year took 6th and might give us a chance for a buddy prize.
So, can we stay on target to finish the series in the top quarter? There are 3 races left, but it is forecasted to get very windy tomorrow, so we might struggle.
Check the Overall results on the NFA link at the top-right of this page.
Phew - gotta go and get my Billy the Kid outfit on now...
Why? Find out tomorrow.
Ben
