Another Sunday of light and swirling winds caused problems for the racers at Cookham Reach Sailing Club.
The first race of the day saw the strongest and most consistent winds of the day with south-westerly of about 10mph. After a delayed start, five sailors took the start with the OK sailors pulling out an early lead after a good start and battled it out, with Gary Adshead (OK 1998) taking an early good lead over the rest of the fleet. During the race, first Andrew Boxer (OK 2196) caught up with the leader, then dropped back and later in the race Jerome Dreux (OK 2007) started catching Gary. Gary held on for the win, ahead of Jerome, then Andrew. Behind Tanja van Wyngaardt and Cara Ivers (E 20156) and Carole Dixon (LN 259) battled it out with Tanja passing Carole on the run between the middle buoy and top buoy on the outward leg, but Carole started catching on the final lap and passed on the final leg back to the finish line with an eight second gap at the finish.
The wind dropped during the lunch break and six sailors took the start, Jerome Dreux having an excellent start and taking a healthy early lead with Tanja and Cara in the Enterprise, Mary Webb (LN 178), Carole and James Long (OK 1998) chasing. Dena Pearce (S 3408) trailed after a late start. The four chasing sailors battled it for second place on the water including a four wide battle to the top mark. Jerome won the race with a very good lead over the rest of the fleet and James and Tanja managed to pull out a gap and battled it out on the final lap for second place on the water. James won the battle with a good final run down to the finish line and finished second ahead of Tanja by 13 seconds, but the battling Lightnings of Mary and Carole finished ahead of them, second and third on handicap.
The final race saw an excellent battle throughout the race between Gary Adshead and Andrew Boxer, Gary pipping Andrew by 2 seconds at the finish. Mary Webb finished third on the water after some excellent reading of the difficult wind conditions between the top buoys, pulling away from the rest of the fleet and finishing a lonely third and won the race on handicap.
Andrew has taken the lead in the series with Mary in second and Jerome third.