Puddleduck Vineyard Racing DF95 22/6/23

[Shorty]

It was a nice sunny day with plenty of wind about for today’s DF95 racing at Puddleduck vineyard. The blustery North-West conditions stretched the limits of A-rigs in the gusts but all skippers chose them as they were needed for the calm patches on the dam.

Our permanent buoys do not allow for the setting of a good start line in this wind direction and the bias tempted many skippers to get a bit bargey at the start. I think that this is something that we need to look into.

Today we welcomed back a few skippers that have been missing in action. Trout returned after some pretty major surgery. I reckon that he did a great job just standing up for a couple of hours but to race into second overall was a really good accomplishment.

Phil Turnbull has had a couple of weeks off with covid and then about four weeks holidaying in Townsville. So after six weeks away ‘The Smiling Assassin’ puts his boat on the water and blitzes the fleet straight off the bat in the first race today.

And Gerald Stevens, a regular at Forcett Lakes, joined us with his bright yellow-hulled No. 2. Gerald finished third overall today. That’s not bad for a warm up! Welcome back to you all!

Racing today was exceptionally close and to demonstrate how the podium was shared around – all skippers made it to the podium by race No. 6, and even at the end of the day the greatest handicap was 20 sec.

As mentioned, overall: Gerald took third, Trout a well-earned second, and I managed to claim overall honors by a single point. With so many making the podium in individual races consistency proved a decisive factor for gaining a place overall.

Ron Cullen demonstrated that his super-powers go way beyond the realms of electronics and sailing by bringing along a tray of lovely slice to eat with our coffee. It was absolutely delicious Ron and very much appreciated by those staying today. Thank you very much!

John S

[Gadget]

Thanks for the write up Shorty and it was a great days sailing.

Also, thank you for the kind words for the fruit slice.

Following are some videos from my hat cam. It is a very slow process getting them up into YouTube so I generally just upload a few of them.  A couple more to come after these.

Race 1:

 

Race 2 aborted start!!

 

Race 5:

 

[Gadget]

Race 8:

 

Race 10:

 

Race 11:

 

[Author]

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