Scottish Blaze at Helensburgh

Author: Peter Collings, 29/05/05

The weather forecast of gales, rain and low temperatures put off all but the most hardened Blaze sailors. Bill Soudan's excuse was that he didn't fancy towing his boat down from Inverness through drifting snow with Force 8 winds. Clearly going soft!

Mervyn Wright and Peter Collings were put into the handicap fleet. On the Saturday it was blowing 30 knots in the exposed area where racing is normally held so all racing was held in a sheltered area near the club where it was under 20 knots. In the first race all but two of the handicap fleet started on the wrong gun so that was an easy win for Peter. He followed this up by a win in the second race.

Sunday morning the wind had dropped to 15 to 20 knots so racing was held in the more exposed area. Peter held off Mervyn in the first race but in the second one, in increasing winds, Mervyn was streets ahead. In the last race the wind built to over 30 knots. Only 6 boats out of a regatta entry of 31 were still sailing by the end, including a Blaze!

So the series result was Peter ahead of Mervyn, with Peter also winning the handicap class