Tricky day

Andi Robertson reports from day one of the Bell Lawrie Scottish Series, with photos from Marc Turner

It was just about enough to make you want to go offshore racing. The first day of the new look Bell Lawrie Scottish Series, with no offshore feeder races, clearly upset the weather gods, for they conspired to deal up one of the trickiest and least satisfying days on the water that many can remember.

It was not that there was no wind, for both of the races on the Graham Technology fleet in the south of the loch started with breezes from the south and east. It was just that it shifted and shut down on different parts of the track, and it rained.

For the visitors from the south of England, such as Scotland's Cowes based double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson there was also the knowledge that at home it was 27 degrees and sunny. For her debut on Loch Fyne along with her crew of the RYA Volvo Youth Keelboat programme's Farr 45 John Merricks it was a difficult day. They finished third of the three Farr 45s in Class 1 and then were just one of the Class 1 and 2 boats which had to watch the time limit tick away to make their afternoon in the rain a waste of time. Several protests were coming the way of the Race Committee last night accusing them of failing to stop the race when they had the opportunity.

"It says quite clearly in the sailing instructions that if a lap of the course is completed then it constitutes a valid race and the race committee will be taking times at the marks. They obviously weren't or we could get some kind of result," explained Mike Richards, tactician on the new Mills 40 Tiormat, just one of the protesters this evening. The fast boats struggled to save their times on handicap in Class 1 and it was Oliver Sheehy's Dublin Bay First 44.7 White Tiger which won the first race.

The Swan 45s proved to be closely matched with Grant Gordon and Klaus Diedrich's Fever gaining the upper hand with two wins against Keith Miller's Crackerjack's two second places.

With local Tarbert past winner of the Scottish Series Trophy Ruaraidh Scott foregoing the chance to steer his 1720 King Quick in favour of calling the shots on Fever with Chris Law on mainsheet, they made the upwind legs count passing Crackerjack twice in the second race.

One disgruntled crew were that of Salamander XVIII, John Corson's Bavaria Match 38. They won the first race and hitched into the new breeze first on the second heat and were almost a lap ahead of some of their rivals, and would certainly have been on course for a second victory if the race had been finished when it could have been.

IRC Class 3 did manage two finishes and honours were shared out between Howard Morrison, a past Scottish Series winning helm, on the Sigma 38 Enigma while the Davidson 36 Hops won the second race.

Results

Swan 45 Class, Race 1:
1 Fever (Gordon/Diederichs) corrected time: 1:44:45
2 Crackerjack (Keith Miller) 1:46:16

IRC Class 1, Race 1:
1 White Tiger (T Oliver Sheehy) 1:58:19
2 Xanadu (Andy Knowles) 2:00:13
3 Playing FTSE (Jonathan Anderson) 2:00:53
IRC Class 2, Race 1:
1 Salamander XVIII (John Corson) 1:48:00
2 Quokka (Peter Rutter) 1:48:59
3 Blue Fin (Alex Heron) 1:49:38

IRC Class 3 Race 1:
1 Enigma (H & M Morrison) 1:29:22
2 Miss Tuttles (Gerald Firth) 1:29:46
3 Eland (Mark Allen) 1:31:06

IRC Class 4 Race 1:
1 RoBo (Jock Blair) 1:24:20
2 Checkmate (John Biggs) 1:25:01
3 Leda (William Rutherford) 1:25:37

CYCA Class 6, Race 1:
1 Tangle O’the Isles (Joey Gough) 1:29:43
2 Piecemaker (James Hamilton) 1:29:50
3 Glenafton (B Young) 1:31:32

CYCA Class 7, Race 1:
1 Mosika Alma (Mark Goodwin) 1:22:58
2 Kudos (Donald Syme) 1:23:11
3 Mellow Moment (Alan Rodger) 1:23:55

CYCA Class 8, Race 1:
1 Pio Moso (David Allan) 1:13:51
2= Pointer (Brian Robertson) 1:14:03
2= Oyster of Ashton (Gilbert Deacon) 1:14:03

CYCA Restricted Sail Class 9, Race 1:
1 Prince of Tides (John Marrow) 1:29:20
2 Tem Purr (D & E Lindsay) 1:32:09
3 Pippa (Fraser Gray) 1:32:10

CYCA Restricted Sail Class 10, Race 1:
1 Siglet (C & M Craig) 1:14:01
2 Skibbereen (Pilkington/Anderson) 1:18:25
3 Tailor Maid (Campbell Crawford) 1:19:57

Sigma 33 Class, Race 1:
1 Sigmatic (Donald Mclaren) 2:09:22
2 Sea-Pie of Cultra (Jerry Colman) 2:09:34
Blues (Sid Brierley) 2:17:47

National Sonata Class, Race 1:
1 So (McLure/Stewart) 1:28:23
2 Peshwa 4 (Timothy Tindal) 1:29:15
3 Pied Piper (Alan Harper) 1:30:03

1720 Sportsboat, Race 1:
1 Antix (Anthony O’Leary) 1:37:02
2 Goacher Sails (Goacher/Tunnicliffe) 1:39:04
3 The Big L (Charles M Frize) 1:39:45

Sportsboat Class, Race 1:
1 TK (Bibby/Rogers) 1:44:00
2 Warthog (A & S Lightbown) 1:52:10
3 Elf (Leiper/Murray) 1:54:45

Impala 28, Race 1:
1 Mersonary (Angus/Wallace) 1:09:30
2 Bluestreak (Charlie Hussey) 1:10:15
3 Orrkid (Alistair Orr) 1:11:33

Swan 45 Class, Race 2:
1 Fever 1:33:17
2 Murka 2 (Mikhail Mouratov) 1:48:54

IRC Class 3, Race 2:
1 Hops (Bolton/McLean) 1:16:49
2 Thornoxon (A & G MacIntyre 1:17:08
3 Eauvation 4 (David Clark) 1:18:20

IRC Class 4, Race 2:
1 Billycan 05 (Bill MacKay) 1:23:08
2 Checkmate (John Biggs) 1:24:47
3 Kit Off (David Atkinson) 1:27:47

CYCA Class 6, Race 2:
1 Piecemaker ) 00:33:45
2 Tangle O’the Isles 00:33:53
3 Glenafton 00:34:31

CYCA Restricted Sail Class 9, Race 2:
1 Tem Purr 00:24:35
2 Prince of Tides 00:25:31
3 Pippa 00:25:37