Kirkcarrion Cup 12/09/21

Published 21:36 on 15 Sep 2021

The inaugural Kirkcarrion Cup competition for double handed boats took place on Sunday. Five boats made the long trek to the water, and despite light winds managed to complete a series of three races.
One of the aims of the competition is to get sailors who do normally sail single handers to get into larger boats and work together as a team, and this certainly happened in two of the boats where young sailors paired up with experienced helms and hopefully learnt some useful tips.
Race one had an interesting start. The crew of Clair de Lune realised that they had forgotten to take a race watch with them so hit on the idea of following James as he generally makes a good start. On his approach to the line James ran aground, Clair de Lune quickly raised their centreboard and managed to keep moving through the shallows to arrive on the line in the perfect position and bang on time. It was more through good luck than good management.
Races 2 and 3 saw a course change that produced a fiendish downwind course featuring three gybes, and four marginal spinnaker reaches. Hi Jinks chose to drop their spinnaker on two of the legs, whilst Clair de Lune kept theirs flying. Both crews were fairly fed up with raising, dropping and gybing their kites by the end.
David and Fiona in the Enterprise showed a turn of speed but kept getting on the wrong side of the rules, and Ian with Henry and William on board took line honours in race three.
Clair de Lune took the Kirkcarrion Cup home and Isabella got the prize for the highest placed junior crew.