Scorpions at the Weymouth Dinghy Regatta
by Rachael Rhodes 8 Jul 2021 03:21 NZST
3-4 July 2021
32 Scorpions made up the largest fleet competing at the Weymouth Regatta. They were greeted on Saturday morning with a fantastic force 3 to 4, lovely Weymouth waves and a tiny bit of sunshine, the strong fleet sailed out to the bay for their first 3 races of the weekend.
Sam Watson and Shandy took advantage of the starboard biased line and led to the first windward mark. Tom and Rach followed very closely by Alan and Simon in hot pursuit. The 3 boats had a fantastic race all the way to the finish where they were met with quite an odd finishing line which through them all out! Fortunately for Sam and Shandy, the line was laid perfectly for them to just snatch their first Scorpion win by centimetres.
With a building but very steady wind the second race started. With some of the lighter boats choosing to rake, this time it was Tom and Rachel that took the early lead. This was the start of the show for the pair who quickly started to dominate the fleet. Mention has to go to AJ and Chris who had a fantastic last beat which very nearly put them in front.
With the tide building the fleet started the final race of the day. Again, Tom and Rach showed their dominance over the fleet with another bullet.
The fleet had a long sail back from Weymouth bay back to Castle Cove, our Beat Sailing trackers revealing we had sailed over 50 kilometres throughout the long day on the water.
The fleet launched on Sunday morning, some worse than others after watching the football and celebrating with too much rum the night before. The OOD had decided to race the fleet inside Portland harbour providing some very interesting conditions. The wind was fluctuating between 12-20 knots and flicking constantly.
The night before seemed to have no effect on the unstoppable pairing of Tom and Rach who took another early lead, this time being followed closely by Ryan and Hannah Buchanan who put up a fierce defence against the chasing pack.
Race 5 started, and the breeze was quickly rising. The most enjoyable aspect of this race was watching Tom Jeffcoat swimming after his boat after falling out of a broken toe strap on the first beat. With the dream team out of the way and a building breeze, Alan and Simon showed their excellent boat speed and skill in the choppy water to take the win.
The final race of the day allowed for some scary reaching, crazy gybing and loads of sore legs! A squall blew over the top of Portland and straight down our racecourse. Again, Alan and Simon took an early lead to the windward mark, followed closely by Sam and Shandy and Tom and Rach. The crazy winds allowed for loads of position changing, capsizing and general carnage! This time Tom and Rach took an early gybe at the windward mark which allowed them to overtake everyone as the wind carried on building. There were lots of sailors swimming at this point, but special mention must go to Chloe Willars and John Tailby who flew around the racecourse and pushed till the very end finishing 4th. Great effort considering only half of the fleet managed to get around the racecourse!
Overall, a fantastic event was had by all. Thank you, Rachel and the team, at Castle Cove for organising such a brilliant event, all of the travellers for attending, Shandy for getting me around the racecourse, for putting up with me and for the constant abuse and Amy and Debbie for being such great trolley dollies.