THE forecast was for rain and tremendous winds with even more tremendous gusts, meaning most of the sailing club stayed at home.

But the four stalwarts who took to the water found that, as often with southerly winds at Upper Tamar Lake, the worst seemed to shoot over, leaving a very unsettled but sailable series of blasts on the water.

The officers of the day, Robin and Linda Spiller, set five laps of a short course that would keep the competitors reasonably close to the safety boat.

James Pollard, cautious in a Laser 4.7, was first away with Bob Sampson, equally timid, second. Nathan Pollard, with a towering Radial sail on his Laser, followed and Adam Hilton’s Solo, with its massive 8.7 square metres of sail, was last.

The situation changed as they bunched at the first buoy, Dam Green. Sampson and James Pollard forgot that Dam Red had to be rounded before they could run up the lake and lost a few metres to Nathan Pollard and Hilton.

Nathan Pollard led and then extended his lead on the beat back towards the Dam with Hilton losing ground and Sampson gaining. James Pollard responded with a finely judged set of tacks, which took him to second place at the Dam.

The Solo’s big sail pulled the boat up the order each lap on the run from Dam Red to Middle and all competitors planed at great speed across the middle of the lake from West to Inlet.

On the fourth lap, Hilton overtook James Pollard at West only to get overwhelmed by a gust then stuck in irons and, while recovering, ignore the need to round Zebra. He was disqualified.

On the last lap Nathan was held up by fickle winds while at Dam Green and James also struggled giving Bob the chance to overtake him and win the race.