Breezy Burghfield

LWA Icebreaker – Burghfield SC, Sat 30 October 2021

After an early morning of quite appallingly bad weather, Burghfield presented us with a very enjoyable day’s sailing, most of it in sunshine! Twenty sailors turned up for the event, Icebreaker Event One, which produced a neat five teams of four persons each.

Our Race Officer, Tony Chandler, set us a fairly large course at the far end of the lake, in anticipation of an increasing wind, which did not actually materialise until after lunch, consequently Race One and Two were sailed in six or seven knots, with more than a few lulls but with the occasional extra puff to liven things up.

Having been “volunteered” to be Gate Boat, Rob Kent nevertheless quickly made up the disadvantage to take first place ahead of Annette and Nick Kidd, with Emily Kent in fourth.

Rob continued his winning ways in Race Two, this time with Kevin Greenhough in second and Lewis Barnes third.

After lunch the anticipated improvement in the wind had arrived and we were treated to a couple of excellent races around a slightly smaller course, which had been changed to take account of the wind veer. Yet again Rob was in his element in Race Three, taking first place ahead of Lewis, with Bob Ingram in third.

By the start of the final Race the wind had improved considerably. A huge gust came through seconds before the start which literally blew the rigs out of people’s hands. After that it settled down enough to provide very enjoyable racing, just the sort of thing we have been missing for so long. Rob crossed the line in first, followed by Lewis and Nick.

It was good to see our old friend Brian Tilbury back on the water again, and we hope to see him at Queen Mary in two weeks.

Individual results show the Solent Specialists team, Rob and Annette, plus Bob Ingram, filling three out of the top six places, which despite the appalling results of Rod Davis on a 7.8, who had been co-opted as their fourth member, still gave them the overall win, with 54 points as against the Storm Catchers 67, Farmoor Flyers took third with 80, Team Useless (they chose the name!) were on 115 and Seavets 130