Sussex Police Open Dinghy Regatta 2017

Lancing Sailing Club

Wednesday, August 16th, 2017

The event this year was in the Lancing club calendar as the Summer Regatta. It was incorporating the Sussex Police event.

Despite excellent weather being forecast for the day which became reality with constant force 3 to 4 in bright sunshine the numbers were disappointing. 11 boats took to the water ranging from a 4.2 Topper to RS400 and Contender. 3 races were sailed, all average lap times. First a triangular course with a trapezoid following on before lunch. The afternoon race was an exciting figure of 8 with tremendous off-wind sailing enjoyed by all.

Race 1 was interesting ! As the racing is controlled from the shore the club uses use a "fly off" type buoy referred to as the limit mark to make the start line less biased and then needs to be rounded before heading to windward. There are occasions when the Race Officer decides not to include the limit and signals this to the fleet. Word got around the fleet that the limit wasn't 'in' despite no signals to this effect being displayed. Suffice to say 7 regular Lancing sailors ignored signals and followed the whisper! A Rookie error by many!!

Overall the top 3 places went to LSC sailors in Laser, Radial and Contender.

Police numbers were very low. Sussex members Bob Trevis in a 400 and Rich Bates in a Radial were the only representatives. Unfortunately whilst travelling to the event Dusty Miller's 400 was struck by a van and suffered extensive damage. There were no visitors.