©Fotoboat

Datchet Water Sailing Club hosted the 3rd Circuit event for 2009 over a sunny weekend.

Saturday saw winds of Force 2 with gusts of force 4 coming through.

Race 1 saw Andy Hessig lead for most of the race only to lose it to James Sainsbury on the last leg. Race 3 was closely contended with the top 4 positions changing continuously with Guy Consdale getting the advantage and coming home to win. It was decided to hold a 4th race on Saturday due the forecasted light winds for Sunday. Race 4 was the most eventful with James trying a port line flyer only to drop his main sheet at the crucial moment capsizing and presenting his hull to Andy who had no where to go and bailed out to avoid a collision. This allowed Dave Annan to get a clean start closely pursued by John Powell.

Sunday the winds was as forecasted, light, resulting in a postponement, when we did get the go for racing the wind was only a force 1-2.

Race 5 John Powell managed to tack off on to port and take the lead going up the right hand side of the beat, closely followed by Guy only to have the race stopped after lap 1 due to a big wind shift. The restart of Race 5 saw Guy take an early lead closely followed by Dave Nunn. Both Guy and Dave took a duckin but managed to climb back into their boats without loosing their positions. The wind was very shifty up the second beat with positions changing but Guy managed to hold onto 1st place despite another duckin at the windward mark. In Race 6 Dave Nunn took the right side of the beat on lap 2 where as the rest of the fleet went left allowing Dave to round the windward mark in 1st place closely followed by Andy and Guy. Guy managed to pass Andy and Dave on the run to take his second bullet of the day.

Thanks to Datchet Water Sailing Club and the race officer for a hosting a good event under some challenging conditions.