Newsletter 23 04 25

At this time of the season, subject to weather and whether (!) suddenly turnouts can explode. Weather is an obvious decider on whether someone decides to go racing but the whether decider is less limiting at this time of year than in summer when holidays get in the way.

The Easter Lake Series attracted 26 boats on Easter Sunday… quite a sight as they all left the start line on a run down to the first mark which was close to the promenade. Now this would have been enough of a challenge to sailors but to make matters more exciting a certain un-named person capsized just after the mark thus blocking the exit route round the mark. There were some minor collisions and some competitors complained that the perpetrators might at least have paid for a coffee at Tanskeys for those who ended up in Coronation Gardens but the fleet moved on and spread out enough that bottleneck didnt occur again. 

The weather on Easter Saturday was horrible (easterly and blowing in unpleasant gusts). The three scheduled races were postponed so that Easter Sunday gained 1 x race making it 4 races and 2 x races were re-scheduled to Easter Monday. RO Stuart Dawson kept the races reasonably short but even then the brisk conditions saw many competitors easing out of the fray after 2 or 3 races thus it was a hardened core of 12 x boats crossing the start line for race 4. To be fair its asking a lot from club sailors to race for pretty much for 3 x hours in a force 4 on a small lake… well done all concerned.

Now to the stars of the show. Ioannis Koutsokeras won the series with a win and three 2nds sailing a Laser Radial (LR). Another LR sailed by Glyn Purnell came second with two wins, a 4th and a 6th. The six race series allowed two races to be discarded. Neither Ioannis nor Glyn were able to race on Easter Monday so they just had to sail well on Easter Sunday.

A decimal point setting in the Sailwave Results App (computer program) needed to be set in order to resolve the next three competitors all ending up on 17 x points - without the crucial decimal point being set Dan Skinner (RS300), Steve Jardine (Laser) and  Andrew Potter (Phantom).  Resolved it became :

Steve Jardine 16.5 points, Andrew Potter 16.5 (this tie resolved on count back) and Dan Skinner 17. Dan took line honours in every race on Sunday.

The rest of this report with some more great pics by Alan Jenkins continues in Sailing Matters on the website under Sailing… you need to login !

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Last Weeks Lake Racing is now just a blur in my memory so much has happened since then. I apologise for a lack of even any highlights except that I noticed that 4x Lightnings raced on Thursday. This is good news!  I feared that although we are up to double digit numbers in our new Lightning class there was a real possibility that only a few folk might be available to sail on Thursday nights but no, 4 boats is more than a few.

Mirror Dinghies
Chris and Charlotte Kameen competed in the Mirror Easter Open Event at Bassenthwaite in their 40 year old plywood Mirror Dinghy, representing WKSC. They weren't the first of the plywood Mirrors but they were flying the WKSC flag.  Finishing 6th and 7th were team Armstrong (Angus and Isla 6th and Poppy and Mum Tash 7th) in the modern glass variety of Mirror dinghy with a bermudan rig. I know they were sailing under the Budworth SC burgee but that doesnt matter to me as they are still WKSC members and if we had an active Mirror fleet they might well be sailing with us and for us….. 

(now thats an idea) - What is, I hear you cry - an active Mirror fleet - Well we have one … Just watch out and watch this space for more on this.

WKSC and the Marine Lake
Elsewhere in this newsletter or in WhatsApp groups you may have seen that there are meetings going to happen to give members an update on the negotiations that have been going on between WKSC and Wirral Borough Council with regard to the use, by members, of the Marine Lake.

No doubt you will in due course learn more about this whether you can make any one of the meetings or not. Suffice to say that this is an important matter because the Marine Lake has been and hopefully always will be a major part of the success of West Kirby Sailing Club.

Tony Marston 

Sailing Secretary