It was a perfect Goldilocks Day at Dittisham Sailing Club this Sunday.
Not too cold, not too hot; not too sunny, not too dull; not too much breeze, nor too little – perfect.
On the way there your correspondent noticed that the owner of the airfield at Halwell must be his second positively identifiable reader.
Just the mere mention in these pages a couple of weeks ago that the wind-sock now resembled a bottomless canvas bucket and, hey-presto!
It has been replaced with a sharp new one in glorious, carrot orange.
(The anemometer still looks a bit sick, but it’s really only of use for wind speeds between none and a little bit because once it starts to spin in earnest it’s just a blur and then we rely on the windsock, so don’t worry about that if you are reading this and thank you!)
Mike Bennett, the race officer, and his team, set a big triangular course with a whopping port-hand bias at the time of the first start.
Twenty, yes 20, boats came to the line in a combined fleet, but in the excitement only four or five of them had worked out which end was favoured.
Those four or five went left, tacked onto port and had the whole race course to themselves, finishing miles ahead of the rest.
(A bias on the start-line means that one end is nearer the first mark than the other. Think of the track for a 100m foot race and then imagine the start-line, instead of being at right-angles to the track, being set at an angle. There’s a good end and a bad end.)
For the second race almost the entire fleet had spotted their earlier error and, with a rather smaller bias by now, were all hurtling down the line towards the port end together.
The result was that there was not enough room for everyone to start down there, resulting in some near-misses and a lot of shouting.
The fleet set off, dreading the sound of an imminent general recall, but none came and somehow things sorted themselves out.
Race one was won by Mike Webster in his Solo, who had to fight off Bernard Moles and Jonathan Weeks for a while before his superior beating skill made sure of a win.
Second was James Dodd in his Phantom, a lonely figure miles ahead on the water, but not lonely enough, by his own admission, to save his corrected time on handicap.
Bevis Wright was third in a Laser, having arrived from Looe, late as usual, but being saved by a delay to the start.
In race two James’ loneliness quotient was sufficient to guarantee victory. Mike Webster, who had been caught up in the fracas at the port end of the line, dropped out of contention, while Bevis Wright took advantage of Mike’s absence to improve to second place.
Richard Allen read the wind-shifts better than his fellow Solo sailors and managed a very well-deserved third place.
There had been several competitors out for their first sail of the season in this major turnout, including Craig Franklin in a newly acquired RS400 and Ruth Day in her Streaker – good to see and welcome to the fleet.
(Someone opined that DSC probably had more boats out that day than the Royal Navy has warships, a matter of some simultaneous pride and regret.)
Let us hope for more Goldilocks days this season at arguably the most beautifully located dinghy sailing club in the county.