DF65 Open at Birkenhead Radio Sailing & Power Club

Birkenhead DF65 Open © Sharon Plested

A light breeze from the Clubhouse end greeted the eight DF65 sailors for this stand alone Open event. Unfortunately a combination of club skippers taking holidays and involvement in other sailing activities curtailed the number of club skippers and we only had one visitor in the form of Tony Broad from Great Orme MBC.

Peter moved a few marks around the lake to try and make a decent (some may differ on that description with the wind shifts we had!) windward/leeward course, starting at the far end of the lake. After a short briefing from Paul Plested we started promptly at 10:00 under the watchful eye of Sharon Plested (Our combined RO and scorer for the day).

The wind was light, patchy and very shifty with some shifts making boats change tack without the helm moving his thumb. Racing was slower than we had hoped and a short drinks break was taken after 65 minutes with only 3 races completed. Peter Baldwin set the early pace with two wins, but Paul was close behind with a single win plus a second and Clive had a consistent 2,2,3 score. Neil Westbrook was going well and managed a third in Race 2.

Birkenhead DF65 Open - photo © Sharon Plested

After the break we sailed another 4 races before stopping for lunch, with Peter picking up 3 of the wins, Clive taking the other win and a clutch of seconds. Paul was still consistent with thirds and a second. Tony Broad picked up a second in Race 5 after a slow start to the day getting used to the conditions.

Prior to starting the afternoon session, Peter and Paul assessed whether the course should be switched, but decided to leave it as it was, however after another single race, Peter donned the waders and shifted everything around, so that we started at the clubhouse and had a starboard hand windward mark close to the shore. For the first couple of races this was okay, but the wind finally began to blow down the lake by Race 10 and we rattled through the final seven races in good time before the 16:30 cutoff time.

Birkenhead DF65 Open - photo © Sharon Plested

Other than a slight hiccup in Race 11 when Peter picked up some debris, he continued to dominate the front of the fleet, with only Paul managing to take three wins from him in the nine races after lunch. Clive was still doing well, but couldn't quite match Paul for boat speed, especially later in the afternoon. As the breeze picked up, both Duncan Neale and Tony had some better results, picking up seconds and thirds in a number of races. Dave Williams was also finding the increase in breeze to his liking and picked up a third in Race 9.

Sadly, Neil Westbrook had a couple of issues on his boat. After sorting the first problem, he started the next race only to have a power failure during that race and so decided to have an early bath.

So after 16 races, Peter was first overall, with Paul pulling away from Clive by the end in second place and Clive in third. Duncan sailed well in the later breeze and managed to put a point between himself in fourth and Tony in fifth.

Birkenhead DF65 Open (l-r) Clive Warren, Peter Baldwin & Paul Plested - photo © Dave Williams

Thanks go to Sharon for being our "do it all" RO and taking photos of the racing, Chris Westbrook for looking after the galley and Dave Williams for photos of the prizewinners. A good if at times frustrating day. Our next open is for the DF95 on Saturday 1st November followed by the Strebor IOM Open on the 8th.

Overall Results: