28/09/2019
Island Barn open meeting Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club

Report by Veronica Falat

The final event in the Streaker class’s Pinnell & Bax Southern Paddle series took place at Island Barn Reservoir S.C. in south west London on 28^th September. The conditions were challenging with a south-westerly wind gusting well over 20 knots and only 5 boats took part.

It was certainly exciting at times with some flat-out planing reaches and scary gybes! Neil Firth showed super speed on all points of sailing but there was confusion at the start of race 1 when he misunderstood which buoy was the outer distance mark and started well to windward of the actual line. This meant he was OCS in that race, which was won by Veronica Falat, just ahead of Rupert Smith. In race 2 everyone started correctly and Neil was ahead by the first mark. He soon had a good lead and although Veronica closed the gap on the last lap, he was never really challenged.

After lunch the wind had moderated slightly but was quite shifty. Veronica was the early leader of race 3 but Neil played the shifts well and overtook her on a run by flying off to the left-hand side of the course on a good gust and then gybing back and reaching in ahead of her. From then on he led to the finish. Only Neil and local sailor Chris Smith stayed afloat for the 4^th and final race, which Neil won and so was the clear winner of the event.

Veronica was the overall winner of the Southern Paddle series but only by 1 point from Neil. If he had not made that mistake at the start of the day, it might have been another story!