Results / Bala Sailing Club - 20/07/2024

RS100 Rooster National Tour, Bala 20/21 July

The forecast for Saturday was looking a bit dodgy, with a range of 4 to 0 knots. Zephyrus was the Greek God of the West wind. Would he turn up or would he hide in the hills? It left a difficult choice for Pippa Evans. Rely on the small 7.4 sail or go big with the 8.4. The big sail won.

Three races were planned and Zephyrus decided to make a gentle appearance. Now these light conditions are adored by Ian Gregory when he is generally untouchable.  However, Zephyrus enjoyed bouncing around the surrounding Welsh hills providing many a hole and some shifty conditions. That meant Gregory didn’t have everything his own way and was hotly pursued by David Smart, Tom Fletcher and local legend Andy Todd, with both the first two races ending in that order.

The third race proved the most challenging, particularly when Zephyrus decided he’d had enough and went off for a snooze. Fletcher was just behind Gregory at the last windward mark, with Smart and Todd some distance back. Fletcher then decided to undertake an ‘extreme roll tack’ in no wind, also known as a capsize. That allowed Smart and Todd to catch up and a lottery ensued to see who could find any wind at all to get to the finish. Gregory was a speck on the horizon by now as he enjoyed what seemed to be the last of Zephyrus. But the God had other ideas and woke up with what can only be described as a big sneeze! Fletcher found the wind further out in the lake to take second, closely followed by Todd who’d hugged the shore. By now the wind was building to about 20 knots providing some fun for the remaining boats and rescue crews. Zeus was not pleased with Zephyrus so, in true rain god style, he brought a torrential downpour to add to the mayhem as we packed our boats away.

The fleet retired to the local Indian for dinner and to pray to the Gods for a bit more Zephyrus, much less Zeus and maybe some Helios (you know…the God of Sun, who seems to be on a sabbatical this summer).

Sunday (or more appropriately no sun day) dawned and the prayers to Zephyrus had worked. A more stable (a relative word at Bala) wind was blowing around Force 3. Mostyn missed the start with a broken tiller extension and discovered some missing rivets in his rudder stock. A port biased line saw Gregory and Smart lead the way, but finding pressure was the key and on the runs. Local knowledge helped Todd pip Fletcher to second spot right on the heels of Gregory.

The fifth race turned into a last mark battle, with Smart having taken a decent lead trying to cover those behind approaching with more pressure. Gregory arrived at the mark first in lots of breeze, but his gybe drop was more of a gybe swim, allowing Smart to nip through to win with Fletcher close behind and Will Coles making the most of the breeze to finish fourth.

The final race brought some more reliable breeze from the Gods. It was still won by Gregory to atone for his race 5 debacle. 

The podium was Gregory (Frensham Pond) first, Smart (Chew Valley Lake) second, Fletcher (Hunts) third and Todd (Bala) fourth. Pippa Evans (Mounts Bay) won the ladies prize and Andrew Hodgson (Bala) won the Endeavour prize.

Thank you to the Bala Sailing Club team who did a great job getting all 6 races away on schedule. It was lovely to be given a warm Welsh welcome by a friendly volunteer run club. Thanks also to our title sponsor Rooster for your continued support.

A final word of appreciation to Zephyrus for gracing us with your presence…but please could you try to bring Helios back this summer?

David Smart

Photos thanks to John Hunter