Saturday 9th June 2007

Ten Streakers attended the first Ouse Amateur Sailing Club Streaker and Supernova open meeting at Saddlebow, Kings Lynn in glorious sunshine and a Northerly force 2 that confounded the various weather predictions for the day - the expected deluge and 17 knot breeze didn’t appear in the afternoon. Thus the people that travelled from as far afield as the South Coast and South Yorkshire had to put up with really pleasant sailing conditions for most of the day.

The first race got off first time with Nick Lovell (Ouse ASC) and Jonny Schuster (Deben SC) taking an early lead until they got the course wrong on the second mark allowing Ian Bradley (Ouse) into a lead which he held to the end of the race. Ian Mansfield from Ardleigh held on to second for quite a while until Nick and Jonny worked their way back through the fleet finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Mark Rounding Action (Photo Ouse Amateur SC)

The second race took three attempts to get away. The first sequence fell victim to an inappropriate sound and flag signal and the second to a general recall. The third start was made more interesting by the Supernova fleet coming through, but the cordial relations between the two fleets were not disturbed even by this melee. Rounding the first mark after a short beat, Nick, Jonny and Ian Bradley led the fleet down the first run until a less than skilful gybe dumped Bradley in the wet stuff, much to the amusement of the entire fleet. He quickly recovered to chase the pack that had passed him, and worked his way through to second just in time to take advantage of Nick sailing the wrong course again to let him through to the lead. The first three finished in the same order with Jonny’s dad Dave in fourth.

The third race start saw Graham Nelson (Ouse) get a third (or even fourth) good start but he lacked the upwind pace to stay with the leaders. Ian Bradley recovered from a poor start to take the lead again before the fluky winds that set in half way through the race gave rise to quite a few place changes. Jonny Schuster edged past Nick Lovell to take second place at the line whilst fourth and fifth went to Dave Schuster and Alan Simmons from Lancing. The third member of the travelling Schusters, Cathy, came through for her best result of the day in sixth.

The general opinion seemed to be that the Ouse’s first meeting went extremely smoothly. The free tea and coffee throughout the day didn’t seem to detract from the real ale sales at the end of the meeting and the prizes of glass trophies and nautical themed beers were well received. Having won some of the beer myself, here’s to next year!

Results: 1st Ian Bradley (2 pts) 2nd Nick Lovell (4 pts) 3rd Jonny Schuster (5 pts) 4th Dave Schuster (8 pts) 5th Ian Mansfield (9 pts) 6th Graham Nelson (11 pts) 7th Alan Simmons (12 pts) 8th Cathy Schuster (14 pts) 9th Roger Wallis (16 pts) 10th Bill Strange (17 pts)