Brilliant sunshine and a 12-knot northerly breeze welcomed the 12 sailors for the OASC Supernova Open held at Saddlebow, King’s Lynn. A combined Open with the Streakers, it was good to see more of us than them!! Competitors enjoyed a relaxed pre-start and race brief with free tea and coffee provided by the host club.

Race 1 got away cleanly and after the short beat to No 1 we all started the run down through the Streakers on to the next mark, with lots of chances for downwind gybing and port/stbd tactics there were lots of position changes on the first lap. Bruce Howett (651) made good progress through the front end of the fleet from his start to take first place at the end of the lap, close behind was Bob Pope (594) from the host club. Laps 2 and 3 saw lots of place changes throughout the fleet but Bob was unable to close the gap on Bruce and they remained 1 st and 2 nd at the finish line. One of the other OASC sailors Jason Sheldrick in 391 was forced to retire with gear failure.

After a traditional sailors lunch (bacon rolls!) Race 2 started with 651 making a good start and establishing an early front place. As the first lap continued there were many sound signals going on as the Streakers were given 3 general recalls, this meant that as the leading 5 or 6 boats ran downwind from Number 1 they went through the starting Streakers. Fortunately good manners and consideration prevailed and no incidents were observed. The first 6 boats all changed places numerous times throughout the race but nobody was able to catch the fast disappearing Bruce in 651and he retained his first place throughout the race as he was the first to cross the finishing line

Race 3 took place in falling and very shifty winds with local sailor Bob Pope getting the best of the start line and leading the fleet towards the downwind mark. The next 3 boats caught him on the downwind run and with all four boats side-by-side as they closed on the buoy there were many calls for water and strangely no dissent. The boat on the left of the group thought it was a port rounding and steered to stbd –no names no pack drill! – unfortunately it was actually a stbd rounding and the other 3 boats steered to port which resulted in all 4 boats colliding and running over the buoy. For Bob in 594 it was an abject lesson in going from 1 st place to last during 1 mark rounding. Both Barry Winter (464) and Mark Giles (357) came out of the fray well and Barry maintained his first place to the finish, closely pursued by Mark.

The prize giving took place 30 minutes after the last boat finished and with the 1 discard taken into account the results were declared as follows:

Pic1 Pic2 Pic3 I have a large number of photo's (4mb each). We will be uploading all of them onto our club website soon and competitors can download them from there or send me £2.00 and I will copy them a disc with them all on. Bob

Overall Results:

Full Results