Race Report, 10 November 2019, the Last Race
Sunday was a lovely sunny autumn day. All it lacked was a steady sailing wind. But then this is Strand on the Green. The incoming tide was almost swamped by the flow of rainwater coming down the river, which meant that there was little or no beach for rigging the boats. And the rigging was interrupted by the two-minutes silence, orchestrated by Tim on the starting horn.
Eight boats turned out for short A-course from the Zoffany start line, with an upstream buoy opposite the Bell and Crown and the downstream buoy below the grid. Once Jane and Tim had disentangled themselves from the bank all the boats got away without recalls, and had a sort-of run downstream driven by a fickle wind with quite a lot of north in it. Making the downstream mark was quite a struggle for the little boats but the Laser, Enterprises, Leader and Alex’s lugger managed to keep going pretty well.
Rob Adams in his Laser was first around the downstream mark and was well up the course before the Browns in their Enterprise, followed by Lev Kolobov (solo in Enterprise), Alex and Chris Greenwood (with Mary in the Leader) got around for the beat back upstream.
Rob was almost 2 minutes ahead of the Browns and Lev on the first lap; on the second lap he was followed by Alex and then the Browns, who then overtook Alex and maintained second place with Lev in close pursuit. At the end of five laps Rob was 9 minutes ahead of the Browns with Alex and Lev within two minutes astern.
The shifty wind on the downwind leg caused Chris and Ian to complete only four laps with the two Gulls, Tim and Jane, both doing three laps.
After the handicap sums were done Rob was the clear winner with Alex in second place followed by the Browns.
Mary Short got back to the arch in time to fire-up the barbeque and cook some very spicey sausages. Sam, who manned the safety boat, had orchestrated the classic Beer and Bangers feast with home-brew beer, as usual, courtesy of Steve Newell and a variety of other treats from sundry members.
So that was the end of the 2019 season. What will we do with Sundays in the coming bleak winter days?
