Ten of us turned out. Luna was in her first race since 2014 under the new ownership of Julian Forrester. We were visited by Michael Scholl and Jörg Kadgiehn of the Freundeskreis Klassische Yachten. Both accomplished helms, they took charge of Dione and Athene.
The wind in the Gareloch is often unkind to Race Officers and so it was this evening to Barrie Choules. He set a course beginning with a windard leg to C, at Clynder, and zig zagging back and forth across the loch. The start for Garelochs is the third of the three classes. By that time it was not possible to sail along the starting line from the shore end to the pin. There was inevitable congestion as most tried a start on port tack at the pin. Teal was set back. Catriona timed her approach just right but thought she was over the line early. The recall was for Thalia who approached from the course side of the starting line and was easily able to duck it before tacking.
After all that, we set off across the loch with Luna and Dione leading. Gareloch air was lightening all the time and becoming more variable, especially near to the Clynder shore. Boats a few yards apart found themselves in different wind. Some of the fleet was brought up on a line of air so that several boats were trying to round the mark at once. Thia came out well. Luna went around the outside of all of them and was well placed for a run back across the loch but dropped back for want of a spinnaker. Thalia found herself headed as she approached the mark and struggled to avoid touching it.
Getting cleanly away from the Clynder shore was key. Thia did well. Teal would have done, but for Halcyone who was still to round. Catriona found the best of the air and, her spinnaker drawing, resisted a luff from Luna.
Time was now getting on and Barrie rightly thought we should struggle to finish if we had to visit the Clynder shore again. He set up a finishing line at the G mark, on the Shandon shore. A lamp post serving as one end of it. We were able to ghost back to our moorings before light began to fade.
1 Thia, 2 Catriona, 3 Thalia, 4 Athene, 5 Teal, 6 Dione, 7 Luna, 8 Halcyone. Ceres and Zephyrus DNF.
President: