Cushendall 2010

The first leg of the North Channel trophy was fought over on Saturday, 4th June. 16 boats took part - 8 from each club.

The day dawned misty and still. Both visitors and locals were sustained with soup and rolls at the clubhouse whilst the hard working race secretary came up with a course - after taking advice from an observer from Peninver, he decided to keep the boats within Campbeltown Loch where the most wind would be.

By the time of the start at 2pm (ish), the sun was appearing, and the wind was freshening. There was an initial false start, caused by one of the boats being too far away at the 5 min gun (or at least that's the story - some say the race officer was distracted by a lady and forgot to sound the next klaxon! Eventually both race officer and boats were ready, resulting in a mass spinaker start, although Carna suffered the indignity of an individual recall after being a little too eager to cross the start line.

A run downwind to the port navigational mark near Davaar was followed by a beat up to windward, when a couple of those left behind due to being "white sails" only managed to make up some ground. Some tried to take a shortcut by missing out a turning mark, but were directed back after seeing the error of their ways. The Campbeltown boats all managed to resist years of habit by leaving the turning mark to starboard before all commenced the next lap, downwind to the isolated danger mark, before returning to the turning point. The final lap caused most interest, as a developing sea-breeze caused the development of a "wind-hole" at the downwind mark near Davaar. At one stage two Campbeltown boats were witnessed by the race-officer on opposite courses only a matter of yards apart - both under spinnakers (and he swears he wasn't drinking). Those lucky enough to escape the dead zone showed a clean set of heels to the chasing pack, whilst some unfortunates lost precious minutes drifting along.

After much calculations with handicaps (which required the race officer to off-shoes and count on his toes as well), eventual results showed that first was Aurora, from Cushendall, with local boats Jochr and Carna second and third respectively. Campbeltown just shaded a victory overall taking into account all boats times.

Full results:

Red = Cushendall Boats
Blue = Campbeltown Boats

Campbeltown won the first leg of the North Channel Trophy by 37204 points to 39046 from Cushendall.