Puddleduck Vineyard Racing (dual fleet) 11/04/2023

[Gadget]

Fourteen skippers happily fronted up to Puddleduck today after being stuck indoors due to adverse
weather conditions that we endured over the past four days.

I think we all enjoyed being outside again to enjoy some close fought sailing. The weather at
Puddleduck was again light winds (sometimes no wind which is of no surprise) swapping from the
northeast to southwest, then south throughout the morning allowing just six races to be completed.

As per usual the skippers who managed a good start, stayed in front and out of trouble. There was
plenty of congestion at most of the marks with many a skipper having to do their penalty turns, re-
rounding buoys etc.

Gadget had an unfortunate start to the day with his boat literally going up in smoke after his main
servo very nearly caught fire, actually scorching the hull of his boat!!

Poonie decided to take a different course looking for wind under the restaurant, but that ended
badly with him taking to the dinghy to retrieve his yacht with a few skippers taking different tacks to
avoid Capt Poonie in the rescue dinghy.

Another skipper, The Unflappable One, also had to take to the rescue dinghy when he became
tangled with Switch whilst he was running downwind. Luckily both boats were ok and managed to
keep racing.

In the combined fleet results, it was Scrooge who came out on top with his RG65 on 10 points with 2
x Firsts, 1 x second, and 2 x thirds, well sailed ol fella 🙂. Second was Trout who was the best of the
DF65 skippers tied with Cookie (RG65) on 18 points. Well sailed chaps.

In the DF65 only class, Trout took the honours, closely followed by Bloody Geoff and Fab who were
tied on 19 points, closely followed by Jammy and the Smiling Assassin who were tied on 20 points.
Only 2 points adrift was Flash who has appeared to have mastered his new boat and I foresee he will
be up the pointy end of the fleet in the future. As for the rest of us there is always next time 🙂

Thanks again to Puddleduck for their ongoing hospitality, Sue for diligently scoring the results, Ron
for compiling the results and all competitors that fronted today.

See you all next time.

Bodge.

 

 

[Gadget]

Great write up Bodge. Thank you for those fine words capturing today’s drama.

And drama it was!

I was on the second lap of the first race and I noticed my sails stopped working.  Thanks to Phil for assisting in directing my boat back to the jetty.

After promptly removing the hatch to see what was going on with the winch servo, I was greeted with smelly smoke billowing from the hull. I didn’t think it was meant to do that so I immediately unplugged the battery.

A fire may have been prevented due to the watertight (airtight) hull starving it from oxygen. Phew!

Here is a photo of the damage.

Luckily, I have a spare DF65 winch servo so a quick clean up, deoderise and servo replacement and I’ll be back next DF65 Tuesday.

Congratulations to the podium places in today’s classes. Great sailing indeed.

 

[Kermit]

yep Nice write up  MR DODGIE  sir    sooooooooooo mr gadget what  did cause the fire 🔥 i recon drill a few holes into the sides  of the hull one to let the air in the other to let it out ……….simple …………………………………just sayn

[Author]

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