Bewl Water visit

I don't think anybody went down to Bewl on Saturday. ST368 and 369 both arrived on Sunday morning and wasted no time in getting afloat. This year Bewl Water S.C. have introduced a day sailing rate of Ł12 for a two hander dinghies, which considering the size of the water (900 acres) and quality of the club facilities is not bad. Neither SigneT entered the racing, both spent the day cruising. Richard took Pat Irving out and Keith Hatton and I alternated single handing and sailing together.

The weather was pretty good, force 3, gusting 4. In the early afternoon the sky blackened, hail started pelting down and a force 5 squall came through. Over Easy came up on the plane and flew. Unfortunately the wind dropped as soon as it started but for a few minutes it was great sailing. We left when the Beachmaster closed the water at six o'clock. Richard stayed overnight and raced on Monday. I understand he was joined by the Courtney's, Liz and Graham Thompson with his Bosun. Richard also picked up first place in the All Comers fleet, nice one mate !

Mike (Over Easy) Baker

Monday

On Monday Graham Thompson arrived very early with his Bosun. Then Margaret Jones brought Barry for her first visit to Bewl. Later Liz Archer arrived also for her first visit followed by Phil Courtney and Anne, and Gorden, Joan and David Courtney.

The Bewl Spring Regatta was the usual handicap racing with the Bewl Champions start followed by the rest in the All Comers start; you might think that would be very hairy with a club the size of Bewl but there were only 19 entrants.

For the morning race Graham took Barry as crew and Richard took Margaret. The 11:00 start was postponed an hour because there was no wind and only 5 knts was forecast. Fortunately as we started a 10 knts wind filled in and we had a very pleasant race of 2 laps round a simple triangular course; there were many large wind shifts.

While we had lunch Graham gave his Bosun to Phil, Gorden and Liz to have a sail.

The two afternoon races were held back to back with Liz crewing for Richard and David crewing for Graham. The wind had increased a bit and by the end we even had a few gentle planes although it was warm enough to sail in shorts and tee shirt. After the end of racing Liz wanted to explore the reservoir so they had a very pleasant cruise to the end of Bewl Straight lasting an hour.

Richard was very surprised to find that he had won the first two races and it was the icing on the cake for Margaret and Liz to get glassware on their first Bewl visit.

Although we had few boats this year once again Bewl has given us some excellent sailing

Richard Cannon