Bala Sailing Club 2022 Massacre Pursuit Race

It is set in folklore that the "Massacre" was given its name as a result of the historical high attrition rate of competitors caused by the heavily unpredictable weather and wind conditions found around Bala in March. Previous years have actually been ran with snow on the ground!

Well this year was having none of that and after a two year break, the 17 crews who signed on were greeted with an ambient temperature around the 10 to 14 degrees and a steady wind starting off Easterly over the bank in front of the clubhouse. Almost perfect conditions to give the crews a 3 hour race that would allow the mixed fleet the opportunity to have some very close and competitive racing.

Race officer Gary Darch set an interesting course by sending the boats 3 miles down the lake to the first mark followed by a zig zag across the lake on the way back towards the club house, subsequent laps of a shorter course allowing the finish time to be closely monitored on the water with the places being taken at the 3 hour time mark as opposed to the next pass of the finish line.

The slower boats that started first enjoyed the best wind strength/direction which filled in during the first 20 minutes of the start and the Laser Radial from Budworth SC sailed by Faye Cleaver was first away followed by local solo sailor, and Bala SC Champion Helm, Dave Grube. These two headed the fleet for over two and half hours until caught by Dan Partington in his Devoti D-Zero.

The faster boats which included a Flying Dutchman from Port Dinorwic SC sailed by Jon Williams/Alex Rogers, the two SB20s, Fireballs and Nacra F18 catamarans were really struggling to gain momentum in the changeable wind strength/conditions.

Whilst they always look so impressive on the water with some great trapezing from the crews, the gradually decreasing wind speed over the 3 hours did not really give them the opportunity to capitalise on the performance characteristics to challenge for the higher spots.

Bala Massacre 2022 - photo © John Hunter

As the race entered the final phase it was great to see an almost full fleet (with only one of the Nacras recording as a DNF). The rest of the competitors were spoilt with some fantastic light and views and a lightening wind to ensure that they were not exhausted and could play around with sail trim to challenge for their final places.

With 15 minutes to go before the 3 hours was up and the end of race, the race officer was collected by the RIB and went on the water to finish the race as the leading boats were very, very close.

Eventually Andy Todd sailing his RS100 got past the Solo and Laser Radial into second place. When the 3-hour sound signal came to end the race there was nothing between the Solo and Laser Radial with them finishing joint third.

Bala Massacre 2022 - photo © John Hunter

Its always good to hear about the event in the words of one of the competitors and Andy Todd has kindly provided us with his take on the day.

1st lap, the early birds were long gone, and it was a lottery trying to escape from X. I got a slight lead and the 100's had a nice, fast reach up the lake. On the return we both lost a lot of ground when we found ourselves head to wind with spinnaker up. It felt like we had a healthy gap on the faster boats.

A typical lap was as follows...
X-8 really tricky after X, trying to pick up the wind. Very hard in the 100 trying to decide whether to fly the kite. One lap I did 3 hoists and drops! Sometimes totally overpowered being forced across rather than up the lake. I tried to get past Martin's blaze as I was struggling to soak low on port with the kite approaching 8 so headed up to pick up speed. I tried to gybe for a final approach to 8, kite came over but the boom didn't.... I had to watch Martin sail away whilst perched on my centerboard.
8-4 A tricky close reach, difficult to judge how high to go in the shifts.
4-B A tricky (are you spotting an emerging theme..) short beat. I thought going right paid.
B-2 This was the one leg that I could really make good use of the kite in the 100. The drop was often challenging due to last minute gusts.
2-1 Really tricky beat! I was able to make up ground here, I went out hard right, there seemed to be a lot more pressure, worth enduring a couple of headers.
1-X Very patchy so close to the weather shore. I chickened out of hoisting the kite here just in case I got dragged away from X.

The conditions suited the slower, conventional monohulls. The cats and SB20s couldn't get going. I was really pleased to catch the solo and radial after a good tussle with Ian's D0 and Martin's blaze. Dan did really well to maintain such a lead, really consistent. I would have needed a fair bit of extra time to close the gap once I'd battled through the traffic.

Bala Massacre 2022 - photo © John Hunter

Huge congratulations must go to Dan Partington for taking the top spot on his first outing in his D-Zero after moving across from a Laser with a Rooster 8.1 rig.

We also have to say a huge thank you to those teams or individuals who travelled across to Bala to take place and bringing some lovely boats that we do not see very often. The Flying Dutchman crewed by Jon Williams and Alex Rogers from Port Dinorwic / Rutland secured a solid 7th place and the Fireball of Miles Thomas and Rhys Chandler from Shropshire SC enjoyed the spot at 12th. Finally the other crew to travel (along with Faye Cleaver {3rd} in her Laser) were Alex Cleaver and Olivia Smith in an RS200 also from Budworth SC, enjoying the 9th spot.

At the prize-giving on the refurbished patio, the competitors thanked Bala SC for a great days sailing in Beautiful Bala Sunshine!

With the monthly race calendar now under way, a full list of the open events can be found on the website.

Bala Massacre - photo © John Hunter

The next one to look forward to is the Easter Regatta running on Sat 16th and Sun 17th April. This will have 6 races over the 2 days with separate fleets for Mixed Handicap and Asymmetric. We will also be welcoming the Lightning 368 class as part of the 2022 Noble Travellers Series to this event so look forward to some great sailing in a wonderful setting.

Local club members have for the second year running, a challenge for the fastest time around a set of marks. The "X521X" challenge is a single timed lap without any handicap timing being applied with an end of year trophy for both monohulls and multihulls. The charts are maintained in the clubhouse so we expect to see a lot of activity on this as the year unfolds.

Finally as well as a number of other open events we have our August fun week. Running from 22nd to 26th, this has 5 days of fun on Llyn Tegid, including a daily racing series, fun races, paddle races and socials every evening.

Finally we have to close this report by thanking the race organisers, safety boat crews and club officials for putting on such a great event. Without their time, events like this just cant happen.

Overall Results:

Bala Massacre 2022 - photo © John Hunter