MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers event 2 at Kinghorn Radio Sailing Club

MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers event 2 at Kinghorn Loch © David Marrs

The Scottish District IOM Travellers 2 event took place on Kinghorn Loch hosted by Kinghorn Radio Sailing Club. The race Team comprised Richard Ennos as the Race Officer with Stuart Teasdale assisting, Malcolm Durie (Event Secretary and Scorer), David Marrs (photographer) while Hutch Grant and Malcolm Durie handled the start, finish and observing with Bill Simpson.

Richard Ennos welcomed the nine skippers to the event and gave an overview of the setup for the day's racing outlining the course and introducing the race team. The competitors had a quite a range of IOM designs including Cheinz, Venti, Fatboy, Buzz III, Gillette, Corbie 5, Corbie 4 and Alternative. The fleet was a mixture of home-built and commercial hulls including wooden hulls and fiberglass. We had competitors from around Scotland representing six clubs namely Aberdeen, Greenock, Kinghorn, Paisley and Tayside.

The weather remained bright for most of the day with some passing clouds. The wind was a moderate but gusty westerly breeze. The control area for the skippers faced south. There were two launch and retrieval locations where paths had been cut through the weed with weed markers about 3 metres offshore from the bank to define the limits of the course.

The start line was towards the east end of the course to give the longest feasible beat. A windward-leeward course was set with a starboard rounding at the weather mark a spreader and then downwind for a port rounding at the leeward mark. There were two laps of this course with a beat to the finish line positioned near the middle of the course.

Initially, all the skippers decided to start with their B Rigs and they continued with them for the rest of the day. There were no changes required to the course during the event.

MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers event 2 at Kinghorn Loch - photo © David Marrs

Race 1 was won by John Owens closely followed by Tich Summers and Simon Thompson. During this race, Richard Rowan had a backstay breakage forcing his retirement and he subsequently did not start Race 2 as he was repairing his rig. Race 2 was won by Simon Thompson followed by Ian Dundas and Tich Summers. Race 3 was won by Tich Summers followed by John Owens and Ian Dundas.

However, Richard Rowan then delivered a remarkable run of results over the rest of the day with some superb racing. From Race 4 to Race 16 he recorded ten wins, two second places and a third place - a remarkable set of results. Apart from Richard, there was very competitive sailing throughout the fleet with most skippers recording a fourth place or better.

With the blustery and swirling wind, there was plenty of opportunity to find lifts (or be headed!). John Taylor, sailing his new Gillette design produced several second and third places, Bob Wilson had a third and a fourth while David Redpath and David Smith commendably kept plugging away in the challenging conditions.

Sixteen races overall completed during the day resulting in three discards. Throughout the event, the racing was very testing, very competitive but undertaken in a very fair and sportsmanlike manner with all required turns undertaken on the water.

The winner of the MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers 2 was deservedly Richard Rowan. He quickly recovered from the breakage in the first race and subsequently dominated the event with ten first places and second in two races. Second was Ian Dundas who won two races, was second in three races and third in four races. John Owens came third also winning two races, second in three races and third in two races.

At the prize-giving, Richard thanked the Kinghorn RSC race team for hosting such a well-run event.

MYA Scottish District IOM Travellers event 2 at Kinghorn Loch - photo © David Marrs

Overall Results: