This is something new for IOM yacht racing section this year; Woodspring v Sedgemoor IOM competition with both clubs hosting a meeting each.
The first leg will be on Sunday 4th June hosted by the Woodspring club at their home water at Portishead. We will host the second leg on Sunday 3rd December. Both are 10am to 1pm. Points would be accumulated from the two to determine the winning club.
Second leg report, results & photos
by Russ Chilcott
Sedgemoor v Woodspring IOM match 2nd leg, Apex Lake, 3rd Dec 2023 results > Sedgemoor v Woodspring 2nd leg results 3.12.23
I arrived at the park to see no wind and a completely flat calm lake – so, not a great start!
We set a triangle/sausage course with a leeward gate, the start/finish in the centre plus an extra windward marker inside to make for a shorter course if required. Sadly, the shorter course was needed! Woodspring arrived with a team of 7 skippers, we had 6. That didn’t matter as the scores are done on averages.
Racing (drifting) got underway on time at 10am. Things could not have got off to a worse start in race 1 for Team Sedgemoor as the Woodspring skippers took the top 6 places (their 7th skipper was RO). Race 2 was not much better as they took 4 of the top 5 places, but, hay, ho, it’s the taking part that matters. The wind was so light, sea gulls were paddling up to the boats and pecking at them, one even managed to pull off my boats stern deck patch!
After a full hour and only 2 races we had a much-needed coffee break. During the break it was agreed by majority vote to carry on racing. Thankfully, a very, very slight easterly breeze did pickup and we finally had enough to move the fleet along at walking pace. Our team did a little better in these conditions, winning 2 of the 4 races before the 1pm finish time.
Overall, the Woodspring club had the better results and that superb early start always meant it was going to be an uphill struggle for us. Even before I got home to do the scores we knew they had won it, and by quite a margin. In the end the scores for this round were Woodspring 21.14 to Sedgemoor 16.50 points.
Overall for both legs they win 39.89 to 33.93 pts. When we raced away at their place we only lost by a mere 1.32 pts!
Putting the result (for our club) and lack of wind to one side, it has been a good event over the two legs with plenty of banter between the Skippers lakeside. Racing as a team makes a nice change from the usual individual events, I do hope we are able to run it again in 2024.
Thanks to those of you who attend and raced for our team.
Congratulations to “Team Woodspring”.
cheers
Russ
(Captain Team Sedgemoor)
First leg hosted by Woodspring club at Portishead on 4th June results > Woodspring vs Sedgemoor 2023 leg 1 results 4.6.23
Hi All,
What a great turnout, virtually all the IOM skippers from both clubs. Unfortunately Steve had a mechanical breakage before the first race, leaving 15 racing.
Bob set out a straight forward course with a windward mark, wing mark, and leeward gate, with the start and finish lines near the leeward end, and racing two laps.
It was a lovely sunny morning, but the brisk NE wind resulted in a course of two halves, quite fiery at the leeward end, but a quiet shifty area round the windward marks, so quite challenging for the skippers, and the ones at the front usually made the right course decisions on the beat.
Sedgemoor made a good start winning 5 of the first 6 races, and on average scores were just ahead. But as the wind increased the Woodspring team picked up their skirts and won the last four races, and were also helped by Andy (who was sailing for Sedgemoor) having to retire from race 8 with a breakage. Richard and Colin had a great battle to take the leading place and were usually in the top three, and it was a countback to third places which decided Colin as the winner.
So the final result based on the average number of points scored by each team was 18.75 to Woodspring, and 17.43 to Sedgemoor.
Many thanks to the Sedgemoor club for taking part in the match, and look forward to the return in September when you might get your revenge, maybe 🙂
cheers,
Alan
(Woodspring Team Captain)