Lucky escape from Eurostar entrapment

Bright blue skies WNW at 9 knot on an easy tide, all lovely jubbly and with every thing lightly covered in snow it was winter sailing at it’s best, well maybe a 7 degree wind chill factor put an nip in your tail and colour in your cheeks and there was no talk of global warming.
Jacko who had narrowly missed Eurostar entrapment sported an odd looking hairy hat and looked comfortable and was heard uttering the line of “call this cold! You should try Franch”
The fleet well wrapped took to the water and approached the start line at the goodly pace hitting it spot on. The sprint to the first rounding mark saw the Merlin and Hornet pass the Lasers of Peter and Martin, it was now race on for Martin carrying 10 points and needing to finish in front of Dean and Rob sailing the Hornet to be 2nd overall.
This series has been by and large a well-sorted affair with a course card in place and some back-to-back racing required to take into account the short daylight hours. But as it turned out the Lasers were dealt a harsh decision by the race box to abandon the course card for a made up course that had a mile long run against the incoming tide giving the spinnaker boats an early Chrimbo bonus.
Martin having won the start sailed on and on down Lawling creek passing Lawling spit and rounding the Lawling race mark and back to wind ward in to Maylandsea Bay. It came to pass that he lost second place by three seconds on corrected time to finish 4th overall and clearly robbed.
Dean and Rob had a wicked look about them and took up the lead following the rounding for the first windward mark and the upping of spinnakers. Working with the dense cold breeze along the long down hill leg all eyes were on how time could be pulled out on Martin in the Laser. The wind ward leg on the tide was well sailed and no time lost ending in 2nd place and 2nd overall with Malcolm and Tony ‘Fireball’ opting to spend time at the Dog and Duck to finish 3rd overall.
Jacko and Lorna having made a good start and rounding the first mark in first place had a bit of a wobbly with the spinnaker and appeared a little captured by the moment with a horrendous jibe and dropping the kite to some rumblings in the front end. Jacko and Lorna took up lead boat out at Lawling Spit and took line honours to finish 1st and 1st overall.

The prize giving followed the racing with Commodore Philip Spillane handing over the prizes and the support boat drivers and crews were thanked for a splendid job recovering the wet and splattered fleet over the eight races. It would appear that the Maylandsea Bay members enjoy the winter sailing spectacle as much as the sailors, and are looking forward to the next event, the Blackwater Icicle on the 3rd Jan. at 12:30.


Next race day Blackwater Icicle 3rd January at 12:30 followed by the prize giving
Full results

Overall:
1st Alan Jackson and Lorna Laval       Merlin 5 points
2nd Dean Saxton and Rob Smith        Hornet 11 points
3rd Malcolm Cross and Tony Everitt  Fireball 12 points
4th Martin Tarling                           Laser    13 points

1st in fleet Malcolm and Tony Fireballs
1st Lady helm Jenny Ball Laser Radial
1st Cadet crewing Alex Longshank Lark
The Splat the Duck Title Peter Playle Laser