Race Report 2nd August 2026
It was lovely afternoon for a sail but only a minimum of sailors were available for a 16:30 start. Nevertheless we had a quorum: James Armitage and daughter Ruth in Zephyr (Enterprise); Chris Greenwood and Felicia Biekark in Distant Thunder (Leader); and Ariel and Kiran Biekarck, slightly overloading Joe Armitages’s Punt (Laser). And we had a full team of Nick Jeffery and family in the Safety Boat.
The wind was East, F1-3 bft. and locally unpredictable as usual. We set a short A-course with a turn just upstream of the grid.
James took the lead from the start, followed by Chris. Ariel found it difficult to make headway against the tide and off-loaded his young crew onto the SB.
On the third lap Chris found better wind on the Surrey side of the PLA boat moorings and made some ground on James’ lead. Unfortunately for him James did the same on subsequent laps and established a lead of a clear lap on his eighth circuit of the marks.
Ariel didn’t try too hard to catch up but put on an athletic display of Laser sailing to the edification of drinkers along the footpath.
Next week is an upstream C-course, starting at 11:00 (turn up early to get under Kew Bridge).
Mary Brown (OOD) and Henry
