Overy Staithe Open
Overy Staithe Sailing Club – OK Open Meeting.
Day 1. A rather dramatic first day out in the sea for the OKs in 22 knots of south westerly breeze. There were six entries. First Alex Scoles forgot to put the retaining screw in his centreboard so in putting it down it emerged from under the boat. Secondly Bernard Clark, launching his new boat for the first time, and Rodney Tidd decided discretion was the better part of valour and sailed home after completing the first beat.
Richard Burton meanwhile had cobbled together a working kicking strap after it detached from the boom on Will Turner’s boat. He arrived at the windward mark with a good lead, followed by Simon Cowood who managed to grind to a halt on a force 5 reach by hooking up the anchor line of the mark and promptly capsizing. He too then sailed home which left two doughty competitors in Richard Burton and Dave Cooper, finishing in that order.
As so many competitors were no longer with us the race committee (Andy & Pete Turner and Jerry Clark) decided to up anchor and get back into sheltered waters inside the harbour. Unfortunately a large concrete block on the seabed had other ideas as it had tangled with Blossom’s anchor. We managed to raise anchor and block to the surface where after much struggling to avoid being poleaxed by the bowsprit Paul Goakes and Henry Smith managed to disengage the anchor.
10 knots forecast for tomorrow!
Day 1 results
1st Richard Burton 1 point
2nd Dave Cooper 2 points
Rodney Tidd dnf 6 points
Simon Cowood dnf 6 points
Bernard Clark dnf 6 points
Alex Scoles dns 7 points
Day 2 turned out to be much more to the liking of the OK sailors at Overy Staithe. Alex had his centreboard back in and out at sea there was a gentle 9 knots of westerly wind and brilliant sunshine, although a rather strong tide which made the beat rather longer than it looked. Alex Scoles dominated the racing with three first places to win overall, and Rodney Tidd sailed very well to record three seconds and second overall with the OK Nationals at Herne Bay in two weeks time.
Overall results
Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 overall
Alex Scoles (DNS) 1 1 1 3 pts 1st
Rodney Tidd (DNF) 2 2 2 6 pts 2nd
Richard Burton 1 3 (5) 3 7 pts 3rd
Dave Cooper 2 5 4 4 10pts 4th
Bernard Clark (DNF) 4 3 5 12pts 5th
Simon Cowood DNF (DNC) DNC DNC 20pts 6th
