"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”  Douglas Adams

It was perfect sailing conditions at Central Park Avenue today, with a steady 10 knots of breeze and… oops, sorry, just woke up from a dream. The reality was that the BOM forecast was spot on: variable winds below 10 knots. We could probably narrow it down to wind 0-6 knots with direction between NE and NW, sometimes both at the same time. Some people reckon that sailing in these conditions is a chook raffle, but luck averages out and the good sailors do well.

The course was a simple windward-leeward, with no wing mark or gate. There were a few argy bargy incidents at the starts and mark roundings, often due to the wind - it’s a bit difficult hardening up to round the leeward mark, only to find you have already tacked. And the rules run ragged in the playground of your mind when boats are coming in to the top mark on the same course but on opposite tacks.

Nick Jerwood showed impeccable consistency, winning every race - so much for it being a chook raffle. Second was Nick Robinson, who pushed Nick J hard in several races. Third was the persistent Janet Jerwood; even when you think she is going to be sailing a discard race, she comes creeping back up the fleet by picking the shifts and wind lanes nicely. Everyone else also had their moment in the sun, just not at the finish line where it counts. There were several very close tussles amongst the rest of the fleet, with boats making or losing three or four places on the very last leg. It’s never over ’til it’s over!

Today turned out to be a chocolate-free race day, with nobody re-crossing the finish line after finishing - the penalty system is clearly starting to work, though we do have a backlog of chocolates due from previous race day breaches - you know who your are :-).

Many thanks to our scorers Ann Morris and Bev Swanson - AI has a long way to go before it can take over from those two ladies! And a big thank you to the sailors who helped set and recover the marks, making life so much more enjoyable for the PRO.

Finally, it was great to see Tim Ord at the lake again, in impressively good spirits. Hopefully we will see him again soon, perhaps with his boat.

Kim Klaka PRO