Carl Dyson Dinghy Regatta August 24-25

The Carl Dyson Dinghy regatta(August 24/5) at Port Edgar Yacht club hosted the Scottish Wayfarer Championships , a 420 travellers and also the first ever Scottish Blaze event.

Sailing ranged from a couple of drifters on Saturday to three excellent races in a wind building all day from 8 kn to 18 kn on Sunday The race officer did well to hold the fleet out after the first race on saturday which some classes failed to complete as the wind died. However the sea breeze filled in as expected and a second race was sailed.

The Blaze class was combined with the 3 RS300s and in Saturday's first race in a 5 kn Westerly Calum McKie (651) stole the race from Johnny Logan on the last beat. Pete Sykes (623) and Tim Brown (529) trailed in later having both started the race bouncing off the committee boat's bow (Sorry John) In race 2 the wind did a temporary vanishing act at the start leaving Tim Brown to sail away. The right hand side of the course paid heavily despite the stronger tide out there and Tim shot away not to be seen by any of the other competitors until they reached the bar after the
race.

The finish of this race was a nail biter as three Blazes, Malcolm Stewart(631), Pete Sykes and Johnny Logan (641) approached the line with a few feet of each other and all pinned on a tack that beat along the line by a couple of 420s. At the end of the day 5 Blazes were within 2 points of each other.

On Sunday the race officer started at precisely 11:00 with flat water, good winds and a strong tide. The flow reduces over the Rosyth Whaleback but sail into the channels and its there to catch the unwary. Ian Baillie's RS300 was clearly the fastest of the bunch and Logan & Stewart got into the habit of sprinting off for a private fight for 1st Blaze leaving 2 and 3 way battles on the rest of the course. The run was well fought with 3 Blazes on one occasion reaching the leeward mark together. At first
the N side of the course paid with less tide but as the wind built out in the estuary and the tide dropped the South side started to pay. Sykes demonstrated that hedging his bets and going up the middle was a high risk strategy with very variable results.

Race management throughout the weekend was excellent with a big comfortable committee boat an army of experienced yacht sailors on the team and an efficient shore backup and results service. This is now Carl Dyson's twelfth year of sponsoring racing at Port Edgar and once again he came up with an excellent set of electrical
goodies for prizes. The next Carl Dyson Regatta is the yacht event (You guessed it - run by the dinghy sailors) on September 29-30th

Results

1) Iain Baillie RS300
2) Johnny LOgan Blaze
3) Malcolm Stewart Blaze
4) Pete Sykes Blaze