Cookham produced another glorious hot sunny day with good enough wind for sailing on Sunday 17th July. Race officers, In southerly winds bearing round to south-easterlies during the day and around 7-10 knots, Clive Church and James Long set a simple course with a downwind start from the OD box downwind to the A buoy which was positioned about 50 metres upstream of the bend and in the middle of the river. This was taken to port before the sailors tacked back up to the B buoy, also taken to port and positioned close to the post at Cookham Bend. The sailors returned back to the start/finish line and rounded the C buoy positioned about 10m below the OD box in the middle of the river and taken to port.
No Handicap class sailors decided to sail, so four Lightning 368 sailors took the start with Martin Evans (LN 150) and Mary Webb (LN 178) making the best start from the middle of the river. Andrew Yuille (LN 446) had problems finding the wind at the start line and it was about 30 seconds before he got underway and chased after Nigel Webb (LN 372). Andrew managed to pass Nigel before the bend and chased after the two leading sailors who were battling as they rounded the A buoy with Martin just ahead. As the sailors arrived at the B buoy, they discovered that the wind on the Berkshire bank at the bend was very light and they all tacked back and forth trying to creep around the buoy. Andrew closed in to the two leaders and passed Mary at the buoy and the sailors tacked back to to the line with a close haul allowing a good beat from the bend back to the C buoy, but not good enough to make it in one beat and the sailors took different lines to arrive at the buoy. Martin finished the first lap with a good lead over Andrew second, Mary third and Nigel trailing in fourth. On the second lap, the gaps opened up with Martin pulling away in the lead and Andrew pulling away from Mary. But on the third lap, Andrew closed in on Martin on the downwind leg to the A buoy as the wind picked up with some strong winds from the bend to the A buoy and followed this with a good set of tacks in the strong winds from the A buoy to the B buoy. He used the strong wind to find a good line to the buoy where the wind was still very light and sailed inside Martin to take the lead. Nigel decided to retire from the race at the end of the third lap. The rest of the race saw them battling strong winds above the bend, but Andrew held on to his lead for the rest of the race to take the win, with Martin second around 30 seconds behind and Mary coming home third having been lapped.
Nigel decided to sit out the next race and all three sailors raced off from the start line together. They were closely matched on the downwind leg to the bend, but Martin and Andrew pulled out a small gap which grew as they rounded the bend and tacked back in the strong wind to the B buoy. The B buoy was still plagued by light wind despite it gusting away only 10 metres out in the river and it was critical to find the correct line to round the B buoy without losing too much time. Andrew took the lead at the bend with Martin just behind and Mary had some trouble rounding the buoy and dropped back. On the second lap, Andrew pulled out a healthy lead of around 50 seconds which he held on the next lap with Mary dropped back in third place. The fourth lap got exciting when Martin had a good set of tacks back from the A buoy to the bend and closed the gap and they rounded the buoy together with a good battle back downstream to the C buoy. Andrew was now looking over his shoulder and started sailing defensively, so when Martin tacked he followed the tack and they rounded buoy and crossed the line to start their last lap separated by a second. Martin needed to try something different to take the lead and so sailed out wide towards the Berkshire bank as they sailed downwind to the bend whilst Andrew sailed a direct line towards the buoy. Neither seemed to gain any time and they rounded the buoy still separated by a few seconds. Andrew managed to open the gap slightly as they rounded the B buoy and sailed back to the line with Martin compromised when he had to put in an extra tack about thirty metres before the line to avoid a cruiser that was sailing upstream. Andrew crossed the line to take the win with Martin following in second only ten seconds behind and they both lapped Mary just before the finish line.
Both Mary and Martin decided to sit out the afternoon sail, so race officer jumped into a club Lightning (LN 279) to give Andrew a race. His lack of recent experience in a Lightning told as he capsized on a roll tack as the five minute horn sounded. Martin Ashworth decided to join the sailors too and joined the race in his Graduate (G 2832), although he wouldn’t score points as the only Handicap sailor. Andrew immediately took the lead at the start with the other two following and pulled out a small gap after rounding the A buoy with better tacks from the A buoy to the B buoy. The wind had dropped considerably over the lunch break and some of the course was now in very light winds meaning the lines around the course had to be carefully chosen to find the wind. By the line, Andrew had a lead of thirty seconds over James with Martin Ashworth third. Andrew pulled away on the second lap and the gap continued to grow and he came home with a sizeable lead by the end of the race.
The final race of the day saw even lighter winds which made it very hard going around the B buoy. Andrew and James made the best start and were very closely matched all the way to the A buoy, but Andrew found a better route back to the B buoy and pulled out a minute gap over James with Martin some distance behind. James managed to hold on to this gap during the second lap, but the gap grew on the third lap and again on the fourth lap with Andrew winning by four minutes by the end of the race. James was second and Martin third.
With two sailing days left in the Summer Series, Andrew holds a healthy eleven point lead over Mary Webb in the Lightning 368 class Summer Series. In the Handicap class, the battle is very close with Andrew Boxer (OK 2196) leading James Long (OK 1990) by one point.