A bunch of complete idiots showed up at Westbere in snow flurries and biting cold. Mainshhets were frozen, hands stuck to them and a rather weird course was set. The wind was light and proved very flukey, and being from the NE meant windshadows all over the place.
A very port biased line, with no wind at one end and a pile up at the other led to a strange first leg, but the pattern of the race was set as Tim (whose surname I don’t know) and your author broke away. The lead swapped several times as the wind shifted and cold hands made mistakes. Coming to the finish Tim was ahead of your author with Sophie Mackay closing down the last reach. Coming round the last mark Tim ran out of breeze and the finsh was very tight indeed, but youth won out as first 2 the boats finished overlapped.
Further down the fleet many individual races were won and lost. Recent series leaders Simon Northrop floated between 3rd and 5th whilst Lee Goodey never recovered from a incident at the start when the ODM jumped into his boat…
Next week there’s all to go for (but the forecast is even colder!!)
As I said, we’re idiots and many old enough to now better
