Conwy Fife One Design 'A' Series Race 19 at Royal Anglesey Yacht Club

Conwy Fife One Design 2022 'A' Series race 19 © Ian Bradley

Sun, Sand & Sangria, or Spray, Spinnakers & Seasickness as we are in Wales

Tourist hordes all over town, Seagulls working overtime intimidating small children and stealing ice creams, Crabs by the pier enjoying a final flight or two before the seasons end, it must be the last Bank Holiday of the season?

With a healthy North Easterly blowing and a horrible looking chop building it looked like a challenging day for the Fifes. Sadly, with the conditions only likely to get worse, the programmed 10ft Bank Race (Through Puffin Sound) was deemed unsuitable and having first checked the catering arrangements for the day, Nick and his trusty minions set course 14 (B6, B12(S), B8, B12(S), B8, B10(S), Finish) as the days entertainment.

With the tide about to turn, the fleet was spread along the line at the start, with 38 (Mike & Steve) closest to the limit marks and 18 (Alistair & Mark) on the Anglesey shore. 42 (Henry, Stuart & ?), 30 (Girls Allowed, Gwen, Stevie & Dave, who isn't Pete), 5 (Family Sawyer & Pete, who is Pete) and 41 (Family Eights) tacked onto Port and headed for the big island.

When the fleet separates, quite apart from the anxiety caused (who has got it right?) it becomes difficult to keep track of positions and tactics, so I can only report on what was happening on my side of the course for the first leg. As expected the chop had built and I don't think any of us avoided the occasional full on 'face plant' wave, very refreshing though these are, they do tend to stop one windward progress!

Conwy Fife One Design 2022 'A' Series race 19 - photo © Ian Bradley

The big island side just won the race to B6, with 30 rounding first, followed closely by 18, in the gaggle that followed were 42, 33 (Merfyn & Simon), 35 (Hugo & Bob), 40 (2/3 the men of Panache, who incidentally did not retire for early beers on Saturday, but soldiered on to take the wooden spoon and then went for beer), 29 (Trigger & Family Lindenbaum), 1(Martin, Catherine & Harry) 38 & 5 had a minor coming together leading to 5 going away to complete the circles of shame.

The run down to B12 saw interesting 'tactics' at play as 42 firstly chose to stay away from the Anglesey shore and then decided to hoist their spinnaker by the clew rather than the head, a mistake only discovered when they realised that the pole wasn't long enough! Despite this malfunction, they managed to correct the situation and move back to join the fleet in 4th position. 18 managed to pass 30 to round B12 with a narrow lead, with 42, 33, 1 and 41 fighting it out for 3rd. In the warm embrace of mid fleet, 38, 40, 35 & a charging 5 followed on.

The next beat was even livelier than the first and several (nameless) salty seadogs succumbed to 'Clefyd y Mor' and decided to feed the fishes. By the time we got to B8, 18 had increased their lead with 30 and 5 now fighting for 2nd. The Second run down to B12 saw 38 using their spinnaker as a trawl (for the second time this season) which proved to be not very quick, consequently they moved to the back of the pack. 18 maintained their lead and 30 and 5 continued tussle for 2nd, 42 had moved into 4th ahead 33 & 1.

Last beat to B8 saw no changes at the front, but the peloton were having a real tussle for the minor placings, sadly from a promising position in the group, 41 were 'locked out' of B8 and as the fleet bore away for the final run had a fairly exciting time trying to thread their way back to the buoy, to round in Wooden spoon position. At the front 18 sailed away to take the win with 5 in second and 30 in 3rd. At the far more interesting end of the fleet (I.E. the back) 40 decided to try the 'wonder bra' spinnaker technique, which whilst it looked impressive, allowed 35 and 38 to pass. After the podium the order was, 42, 33, 1, 29, 35, 38, 40 and 41. 24 had previously decided to retire earlier in the race to seek stomach calming beer for her crew.

Special mention must be given to John Williams in the sole MSOD, who with a rather large reef in the mainsail and what appeared to be a large number of people on the rail sailed the course to a deserved win in what for those who have sailed an MSOD would agree were 'challenging' conditions.