The weather gods delivered great conditions for the Fireball fleet on the Saturday, with bright sunshine and a good Force 3. If WeymouthBay had warm water it would have rivalled Barbados!
In Race 1 Barry and Mark Grant went hard right up the first beat to lead round the first mark, but were overhauled by Derian and Andy Scott at the leeward mark after a very tight second reach. Becky Priest and Tim Saunders got through to grab second, followed in by Barry taking third. Derian also won Race 2 after holding onto a narrow lead from the windward mark. Tim Rush and Russell Thorne got a jump on the fleet in Race 3 with a perfect port tack flyer and showed great boat speed to lead all the way round.
Having built up a thirst, the fleet headed back in to enjoy the hospitality of Castle Cove Sailing Club.
Sunday dawned with overcast skies, but with the breeze now up to a solid Force 4 the day promised some good racing. The 10:30 kick off proved too demanding for some competitors, many of whom had been irresponsibly over served in bars the night before. However, the race officer did the civilised thing and signalled a short postponement to allow the stragglers to reach the race area before the warning signal.
The extra breeze on Sunday provided some brilliant reaching legs and some very tight racing. In Race 4 Derian lost an early lead to Becky at the wing mark, but stayed in touch and managed to get back in front at the bottom of the run while Becky was heard to suffer some issues with her kite. Becky made up for her kite issues by comfortably winning Race 5. Becky took an early lead in Race 6, but Tim and Russell made an inspired move by banging the right hand corner on the last run to win the race in great come-back style.
Derian and Andy won the event with Tim and Russell taking second place from Becky and Tim on count back. The consistency of Chris and Dan Walker gave them a comfortable fourth place and fifth place was taken by super lightweights Andrew Pearce and Marguerite O'Rourke, who averaged better results on the windy Sunday.
Many thanks to Castle Cove Sailing club for their hospitality and for running a great event.
