Upper Tamar Lake Sailing Club race report— May 8

AM: Tamar Memorial Trophy 3

ON A day of high drama, Shakespeare’s ’rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’ was certainly all too applicable at Upper Tamar on Sunday.

Despite forecasted strong winds, the conditions didn’t seem too bad as helms and crews arrived up at the lake, and a good number of skippers rigged their boats and had them lined up on the bank. As start time neared, however, the gusts started to increase in intensity and some club members decided that discretion was the better part of valour and stayed ashore.

For those who ventured out, the attrition rate was greater than an edition of ‘I’m a Celebrity....’ with a particularly gruesome Bush Tucker Challenge — and most dinghies rapidly returned to shore before the race had even started, as the difficulty of staying upright in the increasingly vicious gusts became all too plain.

In the end, only four boats made it across the start line, with Nathan Pollard’s Topper being first away, but James Pollard’s Laser 4.7 was soon clear on its own, hurtling downwind at vast speeds in wildly fluctuating south-easterly winds. Sue Murray’s Laser 4.7 flipped over as it rounded the Dam Red buoy, but Sue showed impressive agility and determination in righting her dinghy and regaining control before she drifted in amongst the lines of the fishermen on the nearby bank.

Bob Sampson kept going for the whole of the first lap but then decided to call it a day.

James Pollard made it onto the second lap and was careering downwind in a plume of spray until a wayward gust from a completely different direction suddenly catapulted him out of the Laser’s cockpit, leaving him bobbing in the water as his inverted dinghy drifted away downwind at speed; he eventually needed the help of the rescue boat to regain his boat and so also had to retire.

This left Nathan Pollard as the only boat still standing; he doggedly kept his bluff-bowed Topper punching into the waves and white horses, until he completed a shortened course, receiving an appreciative round of applause from onlookers on the bank.

1st Nathan Pollard (Topper). Retired: Sue Murray (Laser 4.7), James Pollard (Laser 4.7), and Bob Sampson (Laser 4.7).

By common consent, the afternoon race was cancelled and thanks were expressed to Race Officer Adeney Pooler for officiating.