THE weather on the morning of the Barry Yacht Club Regatta on August 13 was dull, overcast and with some rain writes Brian Dotchon.

The forecast was for a significant improvement mid-morning and, sure enough, the rain stopped but the forecast lightening wind did not materialise. Instead of an ideal force two to three from the southwest sailors had to cope with force five at the start.

Despite the strength of the wind there was a very encouraging entry of 10 boats for the 18 mile long cruiser race which got under way at 12.35pm. The first mark was the East Culver buoy in mid-channel and this involved being close hauled on starboard tack against the neap flood tide. Many boats reduced sail before the start anticipating a hard slog to windward.

Two boats, Lesmar II and Sally Loper, tacked early to go inshore, believing that they would not lay the mark. This proved disastrous since they fell well behind the rest of the fleet which were all able to weather the Culver buoy.

The race was being led by the scratch boat, Shadow, closely followed by MiSue and SoCo. The hard leg to the first mark took the best part of two hours for the whole fleet and there was then the partial relief of broad reaching down wind to the second mark, the Weston buoy east of Flat Holm.

SoCo flew her spinnaker and overtook MiSue on this leg. By this time the flood tide had eased somewhat but the relief of sailing down wind was short lived since the return to the finishing line in Jackson’s Bay was a beat and the wind had increased to force six.

The leading boats still had to combat the last of the flood and the best course was close to the Welsh coast in order to gain some advantage from the early inshore ebb tide.

As can be seen from the results, the first boat to finish, Shadow, completed the course in almost four hours. She was closely followed by MiSue and SoCo whose handicap figures allowed them to beat Shadow on corrected time.

Despite finishing almost half an hour behind the leading boat, Swifty was also able to save her time. The final order resulted in Lyn Reeve (MiSue), Digger Brooks (Swifty) and Owain Thomas (SoCo) winning the silver trophies and prizes in that order.

Whilst the sailors were off racing round the channel there was a series of rowing races which, due to the weather, had to be held inside the harbour. Each flag officer chose a team of four and by a process of elimination the winning team was that chosen by the vice commodore, John Wilson.

The prizes for sailing and rowing were presented by the commodore’s lady following an excellent barbecue outdoors in front of the clubhouse. The competitors, either sailing or rowing, all seemed to have had an enjoyable day despite the boisterous windy conditions.

The commodore thanked all those who were involved in organising this very successful day ashore and afloat.