 SAT, JUNE 25 and SUN, JUNE 26, 2004 Round of the BFSLYC Championships |
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Report from Chris Wright
Well Hoylake came and went, and proved to be hard work. I spent a couple of afternoons and an evening last week over at Dave Green's, helping with the new Class 5 yacht design. Not a lot I could do to help with the build as it almost all needed the use of a welder and welding is not one of my skills. In advance of me getting involved Dave had put together the delta, including the axles, and made the spindle boxes in which the spindles adjust. He'd also made the mast box and part of the forks, so when I arrived it was a case of deciding how to fit them all together. Inevitably it all took far longer than expected. I'd planned to go straight to Dave's from York station on the Tuesday on my return from London but as my wife, Beth, was still ill I needed to get home, so I managed to finish early on the Wednesday afternoon and Dave and I worked on the yacht until about 6.30pm, by which time the chassis was beginning to look like a chassis and then I had to shoot off to get a meal for Beth. I was back the following afternoon having made my excuses and left the office early and we got on with fitting the seat. We used an old seat of mine that I'd scrapped some time ago as it had been repaired so many times that it was very heavy. (I subsequently found out that Mark "Hobbit" Lloyd's seat weighs about 5 kilos and mine is 14 kilos). Of course fitting a seat is never straightforward, so that took us until about 11.00pm. By the time that I left we'd removed the chassis again so that I could spray it, while Dave got on with finishing the forks. I'd taken Friday off work, originally in anticipation of going to Hoylake to play on the Windbob [miniyacht] then more recently in anticipation of testing the new yacht however as things weren't finished I was on way back to Dave's by 9.00am. We got straight on with putting it all together, fitting the steering and making a new, longer mast. A couple of hours work was Dave's wildly optimistic prediction. I left at 2.20pm and Dave was going to be about an hour behind me as he had a new Windbob to assemble for delivery to Alan Watson. I drove over to Hoylake with the new yacht, with Dave bringing my old one plus his own. By the time that I arrived, having had a remarkably good journey for a Friday afternoon (when our motorways traditionally come to a grinding halt), Andy Parr was walking back in from the beach with a few others who had been out for the afternoon but had suffered from a lack of wind. I tracked the yacht but that was about all that I could do. The Irish contingent of Alan and Stephen Watson and Colman Billings arrived soon afterwards but Dave was not there until about 7.30pm. We'd decided when we were there in May that if the weather was OK we would have a BBQ on the Friday so The Hobbit and I went off to the supermarket to buy enough food for 10 plus some of us and when we got back we got on with preparing it. We ate and drank well, the only drawback being that by the time we had done so and cleared up it was 10.45 and too late to go to the Plasterers Arms, so nightcaps had to be taken at the Club. It was a dry clear evening so even though it got cool we were able to sit outside until we tottered off to our beds sometime after midnight. I only had to travel about 10 metres to my van. On Saturday morning it was blowing quite hard and was wet and cold. Under normal circumstances I'd have been keen to stay in the car park but with a new yacht to test it was a case of getting out there. Andy Parr, Dave Green and The Hobbit were keen to come out, Andy because there was a good breeze and The Hobbit because he wanted to test some modifications. Quite a few others came out for a sail who would normally have stayed in the dry in the hope that Sailing Master Len Warrenwould be delaying the start to wait for better conditions - a case of following the pack I think. I charged around in the new yacht for a time and Dave had a go too and we were pleased to find that it behaved itself despite the fairly radical steering. I was using Dave's rig because we know that it is quicker than mine and we wanted to eliminate as many variables from performance as possible. By late morning we were getting cold and ready for a cup of tea and discovered that Len had said that he would indeed wait for the weather to improve, so we went in for lunch. By 1.00pm the rain had moved away and the wind was rising, so racing got underway. It fairly blew its boots off at times and I soon resorted to my storm sail, which I don't think I've raced with since Ivanpah [Nevada]. Even with that I was greatly overpowered, though some sand in the seat for the last race helped matters. Ian "Dibbie" Dibdin was quick in his new French yacht that is basically the same as The Hobbit's and was using a small sail. The beach was smooth everywhere but soft almost everywhere, and we raced around a triangular course. The Hobbit and Mark Sidey were generally the chasers, with me a rather distant fourth for most races. In the first race I had undone the damage caused by a slow start by sticking to a route along some firm(ish) sand inshore of the outer bank but after two or three laps of that, which saw me climb to 2nd place for a while, the others worked out what I was doing and followed my route themselves and overtook me. After four races, with a few pauses to let the wind abate, we headed back for the shore and a much needed beer. Saturday evening was spent at the Green Lodge, which is around from the end of the promenade. From there we headed off to the Plasterers Arms as no visit to Hoylake would be complete without at least a pint or two being taken there. Sunday was bright and sunny, again with a strong wind though not quite so much as on Saturday. We fitted in the remaining three races, with Colman Billings having the odd purple patch in the early stages of a couple of the races. My own performance was a bit up and down as I tried different settings in each race, none of which seemed particularly suited to the strong winds. Overall in Class 5, Ian "Dibbie" Dibdin was 1st, Mark "Hobbit" Lloyd 2nd, and Mark Sidey 3rd. Regards Chris Wright K508 |
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| IMAGES FROM HOYLAKE - JUNE 2004 PHOTOS from ALAN and STEPHEN WATSON Click on image to view larger photo | ||
 Colman Billings [standing], Stephen Watson and Chris Wright warming up for Friday night. |
 The Twins... Chris Wright [left] and Andy Parr show how one should prepare for a BBQ. |
 Colman watches The Hobbit [Mark Lloyd] cook a BBQ to feed the masses on Friday night. |
 Dave Green having a well earned ale after a week of late nights constructing the new Yorker c5. |
 Class 5s get underway out on the flat, "firmish" Wirral sands. |
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