OOD: Leona Shepherd
Safety Boat: Keith Clarke
Weather: Fair, light winds from both E & W (!), no tide (until a weak flood at the end).
Course: ‘Modified A’ As the Thames Barrier closed there was no tide and very little water.
This provided the opportunity to extend the course to include passing under Kew bridge. An anticipated benefit was that the wind appeared better on the other side. But like green grass, it was not quite as good as hoped.
Never the less, the course started downstream over the usual Course A start line, round the PLA pontoon clockwise, upstream keeping the red Port can to starboard, under Kew bridge and clockwise around the red Port can at far end of Kew pontoon. The course ran clockwise.
Start: 14:54 HWKB: none Wind NE 5-6kn6 boats launched* with Chris Greenwood and Felicia Biekarck in Distant Thunder (Leader) and Tamir Gottfried in Punt (Laser), Rob Adams in Big Polly (Enterprise), Dave & Sheila Berger in Entre nous (Enterprise), Kieran Biekarck in ‘63’ (Laser), and Rebecca Hayes in Kingfisher (‘70s Mirror) .
Launching was a sticky and muddy effort due to the lack of water, however there was no rush – there being no tide – and worth doing correctly. The safety boat ran smoothly and efficiently throughout. Bravo to Chris who has worked wonders on the outboard.
Patrick Lane-Spollen, in Tango, launched later and completed the course for fun (untimed). The start was very tight and for the first leg 5 boats remained neck and neck – sailing in perfect alignment side by side (sadly no photos). After the turn into wind, without tide, the boats started to separate with Punt and Big Polly completing the 1st lap after 22mins only 20secs apart. Entre Nous, closely pursued by Distant Thunder, completed their 1st laps 90seconds later. Thereafter it was a slow race not least due to an unexpected gentle flood tide in the final minutes. Always exciting at Strand on the Green. Several boats reported going backwards! The total race ended when Tamir, on Punt, finished his 2nd lap, with Rob on Big Polly still only 25secs behind him, and, 4mins later, Entre Nous was 3rd with Distant Thunder only 16secs behind him.
Huge congratulations to Keiran on ‘63’ for completing his lap and coming in 5th followed by Rebecca on Kingfisher. The sailors were observed walking their boats back – obviously there was not the predicted 5m tide! Great photos by Keith and others are already posted to the SGSC WhatsApp group.
Leona (OOD)