Home • Events • Datchet - 8th May

Photos here.

It was busy at Datchet on Saturday with several training courses for both adults and children. We had a cheery welcome from the manager, Gabrielle Boase, and it was good to see the bustle, especially the enthusiasm of the children, particularly as the weather forecast had been poor. North Easterly winds at 10 to 15 knots, cloudy with fairly frequent rain showers and a low temperature of 8 or 9 deg C. As it turned out the wind was a bit less and the rain was intermittent, mostly dry. But it was COLD!

In spite of the poor weather forecast for the day ten sailors attended and raced. Very creditable! We had a very helpful Safety boat operator called Eric who set a good course for us under the guidance of Peter Tracey as Race Officer. The small round buoys were difficult to see in the slightly gloomy conditions and one was used as the upwind mark. When the leaders of the first race arrived they found two yellow buoys and were not sure which was which. So Eric tied a large round buoy to the upwind mark and we restarted the first race.

In the combined Veteran (one sailor) and Supervet (six sailors) class four races were held with Mike Crowther and Andy Lacey both scoring two firsts and two seconds. So close were they that we declared both were deserving of gold. Tony Chandler came a creditable third. Two Megavets sailed and Russell Polden beat Joe Coulson. Ruth had one race but got her hair wet, became cold and decided to come and help the Race Officer.

Datchet was good venue with good catering, easy parking and useful facilities and there was some very good racing with planing at times. Apart from the cold weather, a very good day.

Results

John Harper