Good Racing at IOMYC in May
The 2009 sailing season at Port St Mary stuttered into life in May, affected by either fog or rough weather mid-month. Both the racing and training sections each suffered a couple of cancellations. Outside of this lost fortnight, some good racing has been enjoyed by an encouraging 28 different dinghies - best turnout to date was 20 boats on Friday 29th. Nice to see a handful of the older trainees having a go at club racing too - it’s the only way to really learn.
The first two trophies of the season results (top ten only):
Alice Cup (17 entries in four races): 1st Mike Pridham (Laser), 2nd Ali Hinds (Radial), 3rd Russell & June Collister (RS200), 4th Ben Swindlehurst (Radial), 5th Mick Kneale, Donald Edwards & Phil Hardisty (Nat.18), 6th Dave Batchelor (RS200), 7th Richard Baker (Sailboard), 8th Greg Kelly (RS Tera), 9th Simon Pressley (Laser), 10TH James Kelly (RS Tera)
Peacock Cup (23 entries in seven races): 1st Russell & June, 2nd Dave Batchelor, 3rd Mike Pridham, 4th Greg Kelly, 5th Richard Baker, 6th James Walker (Blaze), 7th Ali Hinds, 8th Ben Swindlehurst, 9th John Dowling (Wayfarer), 10th Simon Pressley.
The cruisers had scheduled two races in May. The pursuit race on the 9th was abandoned when not a single boat had reached the first mark off Scarlett at the two-hour time limit. On Saturday23rd they enjoyed a great race to Peel to swell the numbers sailing in the Peel regatta next day. PSM-Peel race: 1st Talisker (Moody 33 Eclipse) Mike Newby, 2nd Popard (Westerly Cirrus) John Dowling, 3rd Shellan (Dehler CWS36) Richard Baker, 4th Sorcery (Sigma 33) Mike Stanton.
PSM dinghy racing continues Friday evenings and Sunday mornings. Next major cruiser event is the Hamblin Round Mann offshore race (anti-clockwise round the IOM), starting 0800 hrs Saturday 13th June from Port St Mary. Let’s hope for an improvement on last year’s effort when there were no finishers, after the entire fleet was driven back by sail damage in gale-force winds.
Mick Kneale
