Challenger Open

Sailability Scotland Challenger Traveller Series at CSSC 2019

Once again we were lucky enough to have a lovely sunny weekend for the Scottish Sailability Challenger event – 2 glorious days of sunshine but sadly not a lot of wind until after the racing had finished at Sunday lunchtime.

Firstly,  a huge thank you to everyone who came along to help – we couldn’t have done it without you.  Special thanks to Angus for RO duties, Alice for organising all the food, Mark for safety boat and Steve C , Brian and Stan as assistants, Hugh and Oliver for helping on Friday afternoon to assemble the boats.

Since there were only 5 visiting boats this year and Jon was unable to find any takers to sail his 2 challengers Jon said he would sail one and was looking for someone else to sail the other one as his eyes landed on me……never having sailed one before I can say in all honesty once there is a bit of wind they are great fun to sail.

5 races were planned over the 2 days.   After an interesting first race with the wind going from nothing to quite a good breeze and then totally changing direction resulting in a shortened course, it was time for lunch and who should turn up but Stan…….but also so did Jan and her friend Laura – as Jan said they timed it just right they walked in to the compound and sat down to lunch!  Great to see Jan looking so well.

After a good lunch it was back to the challenge of the wind for a further 2 races, personally I enjoyed my investigation of the far side of the loch making friends with the swans on a sunny afternoon I had my picnic  (juice and chocolate) with me so no problem that there was no wind and I could take a while to get back – although I did accept a tow back after the second race.  Meanwhile, Jon was out for a win giving Duncan Greenhalgh and Alex a good run for their money.

Forecast for Sunday was nae wind as far as I was concerned, but others must have seen a different website as the consensus was wind was definitely forecast to arrive at 10am or maybe 11am……. so the final 2 races started – slowly and continued slowly although on the final race the wind did pick up and I thought there was a chance that I might not be in my  now customary last  position but alas at the final buoy both Dik and Ronnie passed me.

After more food and the prize giving it was time to pack up and for the helpers time to get out and enjoy the now substantial breeze for the afternoon.

Final Results are here

Some pictures from the weekend are here

Directions