Slipper is blessed by the wind gods for H&H9

So we are all standing round in the dinghy park trying to get enthused about a 3-4knt wind (Emma P failing miserably), and the first properly cold air temperature of late season sailing.  Everyone launches, and with 10 minutes to the start a perfect f3-4 picks up from the West and holds for the whole race.  And I mean perfect in the sense that the assymetrics could not hold their kites to Shepherd, with the two ISOs opting to locate the mudbanks as pathfinders for the rest of the fleet as a result.

Its a difficult job as race officer to pick a course when the wind has yet to truly settle before the start of the race, but we ended up with a course that encompassed all points of sail but with no true beat unfortunately.

38 boats on the water today, a nicely disciplined start, lets hope the wind stays up for tomorrow.

Anyway some standout results from the racing:

- Great to see Matt and Gael back on the water in their RS400, placing joint second with Hugh and Steve in their Fireball.  The big question is whether Matt can be persuaded to sail again today, instead of messing round with a chain driven ancient car.
- Much to talk about in the Laser fleet, with the two 4.7s of Sarah Smith and Claire Coussens giving the rest of the Slipper fleet a pasting on handicap.  There were doubters on the shore who thought a Radial rig might be the better choice, they were wrong!  Especially good to see Sarah on the water after a little absence, welcome back.
- Tom Tredray and Sam Tweedle place 1st Laser and 1st Radial, I suspect Sam might be happier with his start this week (sorry for posting the video if you are reading this Sam!)
- John Excel and various crews show that its not all about tooling around in ridiculously light winds (not that I'm bitter), and places a creditable 8th in the Laser Stratos, points for Slipper and a great result.
- The Dream Team of James Mant and John Brook fire up the awesomeness (a word Oscar has recently introduced chez Riddington) of the Magno and posts an excellent 15th place. 
- Glen Grant continues to put the time into his RS300, but we all go through that period of a rather steep learning curve and its great to see Glen sticking with it (+ the close reaches make it worthwhile don't they?)

Only three races left in the H&H, with plenty of scope for changes in the fleet results.  On that front, the prizegiving will be scheduled in February, and there will be prizes for all fleets as well and the usual Saturday/Sunday series and club prize.  And a prize for the ISO that has found the most mudbanks through the course of the series - a closely run result, with Mike and Emma on 5 and Andrew and Vicky on 6 (one of which was due to a luff from Mike, the results committee is considering the implications).