Tue 15th May

After a pleasantly sunny day with light breeze, the sky became angrier for our evening race.  Low cloud over the hills and the sort of strong, cold wind that makes you nervous as you walk along the jetty.

Teal stayed on her mooring, her skipper was Race Officer.  Five boats went out but Thia thought better of it and did not race.  Iain MacGillivray set a course beginning with a leg to windward up the Shandon shore.  Catriona set herself up for a good start but confusion over timing of the starting sequence led to her starting last, in a wind shadow from Hermes.  Dione was away first closely followed by Thalia.
Dione eroded her advantage by sailing for a mark too far up the Gareloch and hence overstood the windward mark.  She still had a comfortable lead though. Catriona had fought back to be overlapped outside Thalia as they rounded the mark.  Next was a reach to the north end of Clynder where Thalia fell back in wind shadow and the gap to Dione closed a little.  The third leg was downwind to mark A, off the club.  Dione played the angles, broad reaching down the Clynder shore before gybing for another broad reach to A.  In the strength of wind, boats were close to maximum speed anyway so that the direct route was fastest. Catriona could not quite make the pass but was close to Dione at the leeward mark.  A tighter rounding gave her the place on the windward leg back to the starting area.
There was a second round, Hermes had had enough, no places changed.
1 Catriona, 2 Dione, 3 Thalia, Hermes DNF, Thia DNS.