Team Racing at Roadford Reservoir 14th October

Going into the second leg of the team racing at Roadford Reservoir, the Upper Tamar 
sailors were faced with a real mountain to climb if they were going to make up the 
defecit on the home club after the first week's races.  The best result from the Tamar 
contingent had been an impressive 2nd place in the first race from Bob Sampson and 
Jane Chadney, whose asymmetric RS200 revelled in the wide open spaces of the large 
lake.  Once again, Tamar had four Laser sailors backing up Bob's RS200 at the core 
of their team: Nicky Buckett, Simon Veal, Katie Leveridge and Mike Ford, with 
another welcome appearance by Toby Tobias in his immaculate red-hulled Bosun.  
However, a crucial missing ingredient from the second week's racing was any wind, 
with early arrivals faced by a mirror-like lake covered with mist rising eerily from the 
surface, reminiscent of a scene from a Harry Potter film.  After a postponed start, the 
20-strong fleet eventually got away and for the first lap, the boats were at least 
moving.  On the second lap, though, the wind died away completely; even the vast 
sailing experience of Neil Wallace was unable to coax any motion out of his borrowed 
Topper and he retired.  The remaining boats stayed almost motionless on the unruffled 
surface of the lake, in a scene that Coleridge's Ancient Mariner might well have 
sympathised with; certainly, by the time they finished, many of the Tamar sailors felt 
considerably more ancient than when they started, as they eventually drifted ashore 
for a long delayed lunch.

During the break, however, a gentle breeze sprang up to make the afternoon race less 
a test of endurance and more of a genuine contest.  Worried that the breeze might die 
away again, the Race Officer set a smaller course so that the race could be shortened 
when necessary, but this led to a very short reach to the first mark; consequently, a 
whole gaggle of boats arrived at the buoy together and it took some time to untangle 
the resulting logjam.  In clear air behind, John Buckett's Otter sailed an unhindered 
race and eventually became the highest scoring Tamar boat, in second place on 
handicap.  Despite this, the Roadford sailing team notched up a comfortable victory 
over the two week's racing; the Tamar team will hope to do better next time the two 
clubs meet.