By Oliver Shaw
After a week when the weather varied from unattractive to horrendous, with a full gale on the Wednesday, and as late as the Friday still a stiff and cold force 5 with very steep seas over the banks, we had a superb sunny day with light winds when the time came. That had indeed been forecast, but earlier in the week that forecast had seemed difficult to trust.
Being a Sunday, for obvious reasons I was unable to attend the morning activities, when we had some Blokarting while the tide was out, but I did see this still in progress when I arrived after church; I could see the Blokart sails moving as I drove along the approach track.
Then after lunch we had an enjoyable race, for a somewhat varied fleet, in near perfect light wind conditions. We had eight boats racing, one of whom eventually had to retire; two from LSC (Tom, in his Enterprise, and Chris Franks crewed by Sam Lythgow in one of the club Wayfarers), one from Rossendale SC (Ian Taylor, a very good friend of this club, borrowing another LSC Wayfarer), and five boats from Weaver SC (one of whose helmsmen, Conrad Birtles, is also a member of our own club).
We set a simple triangular course, keeping the entire course in sight of the club for the benefit of the spectators. Two days earlier, on the Friday, we had put out an outer buoy over on the far bank, but when we went back a little later to look at it I chickened out of asking the racers to go there if we still had similar wind conditions; it was blowing a good force 5, and over the bank the seas were more than a little hairy, and even in the Rescue Boat I was having to use a degree of serious seamanship in handling her. So we repositioned the buoy much closer inshore and in deeper (and safer water). Then, come the day, with light winds and smooth seas on the Sunday we decided to take the fleet back out to my original position, and used the Committee Boat as a Mark Boat, having previously briefed the competitors that that was what we would do, and flying (so we thought) code flag ‘M’.
Most of the competitors chose to test the challenging conditions of light wind and a strong tide by sailing up to the uptide turning mark before the start, before returning to the starting area. From the Committee Boat it then looked as though we might have some boats over the line at the start, but in the event they all kept well back.
The wind came in fits and starts, and Cris Franks became a casualty of its vagaries when he and Sam were caught becalmed near the Airport Gantry and were in danger of being swept onto it by the tide. They therefore had to resort to paddling in order to keep clear, and in consequence they had to retire from the race.
We had set a course for 3 laps in the specific expectation that we might well shorten; one always has the option of shortening if the fleet looks like being unable to complete the full course, but one cannot extend the course if wind perks up and they all get round the course quicker and more easily than expected. So as soon as the fleet had passed the Committee Boat on the second lap, in her role as Mark Boat for the outer mark, I started considering whether to shorten course. However the decision at that point was that the wind had picked up, and the fleet were doing very well indeed and could be expected to finish the full course.
Then the flukey wind gave the OOD a fraught moment when it died almost completely on the first leg of the third lap, so we decided to shorten course to finish at the uptide turning mark. However just before we could get there the leading boats got a puff, and it was then clear that they would reach it before we did. But that gave us a real problem, because we were now out of station from where we had been doubling as a Mark Boat, and we still needed to shorten course but no longer had any easy way of doing so. However we solved the problem by transferring the Mark Flag to the Rescue Boat, and using that as the outer mark, and the fleet then finished the race by sailing between the Committee Boat and the (new) Mark Boat, thus giving a total course of 2½ laps.
Most competitors found working the tide to be a bit of a challenge - all, of course, with the exception of Tom, who is an old hand at it and was a deserving and popular overall winner. Mind you, we did threaten to apply a personal handicap in his case, on the twin grounds of expertise and local knowledge of the river!
Final positions:
1 Tom & Clive Workman Enterprise LSC
2 Bryan & Simon Hardy Comet Versa Weaver SC
3 Conrad Birtles Laser Stratos Weaver SC (and LSC)
4 Ken Moran Laser Weaver SC
5 J. Ainsworth Blaze Weaver SC
6 K. Ainsworth & G. Seafield Scorpion WeaverSC
7 Ian Taylor & ? Wayfarer Rossendal SC
8 Chris Franks & Sam Lythgow Wayfarer LSC / Youth Afloat (Retired)
Prizes were presented by Peter Batey (?), Chairman (?) of the Mersey Basin Campaign, who spoke enthusiastically about the success of the event and about the success and the importance of this club as a partner of the Mersey Basin Campaign.
Thanks are due to Bev Mitchell for the day to day organisation of the Mersey Basin Campaign’s side of the event, and to the small army of LSC members who assisted in running the event both on and off the water.
