ILCAs at the Queen Mary Summer Series Week 4
by Andy Osmasta 25 Jun 22:05 PDT
23 June 2024
The usual enthusiastic Queen Mary ILCA fleet arrived promptly for the expected 3 knots westerly forecast. However, this rapidly diminished as they were greeted with a glassy lake and no discernible wind direction.
Undeterred, the race officer announced that the committee boat was heading out and we would see how it went and nine noble and honourable ILCA sailors followed, leaving the faint-hearted and lazy ashore.
Race 1
The reward was a gentle breeze that finally appeared a couple of minutes before the start and your author, noticing that the windward flag was now fluttering from the south, crawled down towards the pin to tack immediately onto port for the start. There followed a high octane, adrenaline fuelled 5mph close fetch to the windward mark with Mike Pryer further to windward but unable to match the boat speed of my lithe, lightweight frame. To leeward Mark Sanken had good speed, but was sailing lower, so that Andy Omasta was able to round a fairly comfortable first.
Things closed up a bit down the "run", but the following beat was a repeat of the first close fetch. What could possibly go wrong...
The "reach" out to the wing mark now became the beat and determined to avoid sailing into the flat water, Andy tacked onto starboard about halfway up to stay in the rippled water. However, Tony Woods, having slicing through the fleet like an amphetamine crazed snail after a bad start continued on port. Benefitting from a personal lift and no loss of speed, he left Mike trailing in his wake and cleared Andy to the wing mark. Meanwhile, Gary Bullock having also ventured onto starboard earlier managed to squeeze ahead of Mike. There then followed a rip-roaring dead run to the finish line with the leaders ghosting across the line in the same order.
Race 2
Despite the rapidly disappearing breeze, optimism overcame common sense and the countdown for Race 2 began with an adjusted southerly beat. , Sadly that was about as thrilling as it got and in an effort to add some excitement I'll add a few random exclamation marks into the report. After a tense and character building opening 20 minutes, 8 remaining ILCAs remained scattered across the sunbeaten reservoir at various stationary angles before the faintest of zephyrs breathed across from the west!! Gary Bullock managed to grit his teeth without upsetting the trim of his boat and with iron concentration willed his boat to a decent lead at the windward mark followed, in no particular order by Tony, Mark and Johnathon Stirling. So began the epic run that would determine the fate of this band of sweaty exhausted athletes. Exclamation marks!!! Sadly, Gary had peaked too early and as the exertions of the previous leg took its toll, first Tony and then Mark crawled heroically past. Another inevitable Tony win must surely be nailed on!!! But wait...no, keep waiting,... wait a bit more....yes, its happening!!!! Mark is drifting inexorably past Tony to take first place!
So congratulations to overall winner of the day, Tony who showed again that despite the apparent randomness of the conditions, the top sailors still tend to come out on top. And congratulations to all those who stayed ashore, I think you probably made the right decision today!
If you've been thrilled and enthused by this report, don't forget that its the Queen Mary Open Meeting next Sunday 30th June and the breeze has got to be better....
Full results can be found here.