Another hot day and light airs for round 3 of sailing.

Welcome again to Steven Matthews and although he was still recovering from an illness, he was committed to stay as long as he could , and Moritz Petzold who attempted to sail the Focus 2. We also had a visitor, Frans de Ruijter who joined us in the last few races sailing an Australian Seawind.

The original course was set on the north side of the jetty for an easterly wind with the lee mark close to the weeds. Fortunately we encountered almost no grass as the dam level has dropped. Again the wind switched often. After the mid-racing break, the course was changed for a northerly wind and after 1 race the wind reversed direction. The last 2 races were sailed using the original windward and offset marks as a downwind gate.

Thank you Pikkie for providing 3 new buoys, 300mm polystyrene balls painted neon red which were very visible and easier to judge. These were also weighted to avoid boats hooking on the buoys (except one but that is another story).

Chris tried a new start and end signal electronic box which failed after the first 2 races. Fortunately Melinda brought the trusty old air horn. Sailing was challenging at times with the light winds, swirls and direction changes, seeing a fair amount of bumping around the marks. Chris became overexcited at times, calling some wrong rules. So we learn.

Chris even caused an obstruction to boats trying to finish a race while engaged in some post-race rule discussion. Some other infringements were also noted by various other boats and so it may be a good idea to spend some time one day refreshing on rules.

Pikkie ruled the day and showed us all the way home. He could keep his boat moving when we stood still. (Suspect small electric motor). Zenobia is improving all the time and had some very good results. Zenesca also sailed very well with two 2nd places, Ladies and Juniors rule…

Max has sorted out the leak on his boat and improved the sail set-up. After repairing failed rigging, he had a few good races and is set to start challenging Pikkie and Dave in the IOM class.

Moritz sailed well but on the start of race 4 realised his backstay had hooked loose, rather than coming in for repairs he sailed for points and got the backstay hooked on the buoy where he remained for the rest of that race.

Allan tried a new set of sails on his boat which looked promising in the light airs but he is still having problems with the radio.

Thank you to Melinda for providing the bridge and manual 1 minute starts after the electronic box failed.

What a wonderful Gala dinner we had to celebrate 50 years of sailing in Witbank/eMalahleni. We were honoured to have one of our founder members, Mr Ron Davies in attendance with his wife Avril and daughter-in-law Monique. Ron’s son Mike who grew up at the club acted as our MC for the night.