ANGLIA LYC REGATTA AT BASSINGBOURN, HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

I travelled down from Lincolnshire Friday afternoon with all the traffic. Getting out of Lincolnshire was slow with tractors etc. The A1 was heavy with traffic, so it meant that I arrived at 5.30pm. Everyone had gone home as the security gate was shut at 5pm. I rigged the yacht in the fading light and left it by the old tower as the aircraft hanger was out of bounds.

Saturday morn started of with a north westerly that got stronger as the day went on. It was a clockwise circuit with no tacking, the left hand runway was OK to make it in one tack, on the back runway you sailed fairly deep downwind so you had to be careful to keep the speed up, then as you came round the perimeter track arcing back to the pan you had a very fast corner past the infamous golfers bunkers. To make thinks a little tricky there is now a large wooden driving range inside of the bend, this created a wind shadow, so as you came round the bend coming back into the wind the sail would "wop" and if you were in too tight you would take a hike, just as you really trying to control the yacht at high speed round the corner. As the day went on it certainly made became entertaining. One yacht came to grief as the axle broke and put a hole in the sail (see pix).

Jon Cookson put a good show on the Class 3s while Mark "SoC" Lloyd and Chris Wright battled it out in the Class 5s. The Class 3s had five races, I certainly felt it as the out of practice muscle were aching

Saturday night was the usual trip to the "Queen Adelaide" at Croydon. The pub's Adams ale went down nicely to help the sore muscles. Stomach was cured with the food. And we had another hour in bed to recover because of us changing back to GMT.

Sunday started off with sun and a light wind from the north east, that meant the course was now anti clockwise, but with all the tree now growing up it made tricky sailing, over on the far top left and large group of trees made a wind shadow. So as you sailed at a reasonable speed of from the pan towards the golf course you turned into the wind and had no option but to dribble about looking for bugger all wind, down on the back straight it was also a dibble as the wind was again shadowed by the earth mounds. For a couple of hours the wind made the odd pilot venture out only to be left on the far corner pushing. Eventually the wind filled in enough to get us racing again. K800 had put some stair rods in the new sail, with a good start on the grid K800 was half a lap in the lead with only a few minutes to go and a shackle on the from of the boom broke, with 50 power I made it round one circuit only to see Len still holding the finishing flag down, Borrill the passed so I pulled in and made a temporary repair to finish way down the pack.

Second race of the day was the last K800 was at the middle rear of the grid and the classic scenario was encountered when the two yachts in front rubbed wheels, slowed down and there you are steaming up behind with nowhere to go, a quick shunt and some swearing had me dribbling around as the inertia of my yacht was transferred to the one in front. By now some darker coloured clouds came over and the wind picked up making the bottom right corner a little hairy as to made a more than 90 degree turn.

With the end of the race we packed up and watched the last class 5 race.

At the prizes it was nice to see Soc getting first time first against the old man (Chris Wright), in Class 3 Jon Cookson beat Steve Borrill.

Gareth Rowland K800