Those arriving early for the first Club Regatta for many a year were greeted with fog over the water and a very gentle breeze, but, the fog soon disappeared and the breeze got up to a gentle force 2 to 3 which enabled everyone to sail happily, except perhaps the catamaran fleet who needed a bit more wind.
A briefing at 10.30am laid out the ground rules for the day: the Bart’s Bash race, a special USA Diner Experience at lunchtime, then a children’s sailing assault course in the afternoon, followed by the prize giving at 3.30pm, with prizes only being awarded to those present, and only one prize per person.
The race started off the club line, with a beat up to M and then a rectangular course round Y, S, J and through the line. The slow handicap fleet started first. Some confusion was caused by an extra 3 minutes added to the starting sequence, but the junior sailors knew what was going on better than the adults. Off trooped the Optimists, Teras and Picos. They were followed shortly by the medium handicap fleet which ranged from a number of Fevas to some RS200s. The Solos then Lasers started next, followed by the fast handicap fleet, with the catamarans making up the final start.
It was a wonderful sight to see 67 boats out on the water, going round and round. Our new world champion, Harrison Pye, was in the thick of it in his Tera, but the day was also about the many people who aren’t championship racers and don’t venture out on the race course outside the Get Racing programme. It was great to see so many of them out there. It was also surprisingly nice to see Mike Clay making a guest appearance in a Solo once again.
The race team of Martin & Paul Huett and Daniel Taylor had their work cut out recording all the boats through the line and, after around an hour, finishing them. The results then went up to the OOD box for the race organiser, Marcellus Pryor, and Daniel to wrestle with the complexities of the Bart’s Bash scoring programme. This isn’t as easy as the normal PY calculations, calculating an average speed over the distance sailed while also taking into account the wind strength to produce a Bart Number. This did take some time and then it was discovered that the Bart’s Bash system didn’t have a ranking facility to give the positions in order, so all had to be entered again into a separate spreadsheet!
Meanwhile, many people enjoyed their gourmet burgers and foot long hot dogs in the wet bar decorated in an USA diner theme – thank you Mark Dunkley and his team.
The kids (and some adults) were briefed by Jon Hughes on the expertly designed Sailing Assault course, involving sailing Picos and picking up balls from moored Fun Boats and a Dart 16. Judging from the shouting and splashing, they were having a great time!
Meanwhile Marcellus & Daniel felt they had done enough to run the prize giving and the kids were called ashore for a prize giving on the patio. It was stated that the results were not final, and needed thorough checking, but the prize giving went ahead none-the-less.
Because you could only win one prize, we started from the top and worked down, presenting the following prizes:
1st Katie Byne, Optimist
2nd & first Solo John Siggers, Solo
4th & first Medium Handicap Richard & Judith Brown, RS200
12th & first Slow Handicap * Harrison Pye, RS Tera Pro
15th & first Novice James Knight, RS Tera Sport
16th & first Laser Richard Byne, Laser
19th & first Junior * Millie Irish, Optimist
27th & first Fast Handicap present Pete Slack & Kate Morgan, Fireball
46th & first Catamaran Ant Clay
* who had not already won a prize
Only in the fast handicap fleet was the winner not present to win his prize, so this went down to the fifth placed boat in the fast handicap fleet
Over the next 24 hours the results were thoroughly checked and some of the positions did change from what was used at the prize giving, but none of the prizes needed to be changed. Thanks to Chris Gandy for helping out in this process.
The Bart’s Bash website records slightly different results because we believe that they also allow for an age handicap for those who had entered online, but our results are in this Barts Bash Report 2015