A chilly but sunny day with a gentle breeze was what met the 12 skippers who turned out at West Lancs YC and after some coffee and a bacon butty they set off for the first of 16 races. There was trouble for Tim Long even before the off with his boat “899” suffering some sort of electrical hissy fit, later found to be a transmitter issue which caused him to use his spare boat for the days racing.

John Brierley took the first race from John Tush and it looked like being a great return from holiday for JB. The places were reversed for race 2 with Tim Long showing no problems with the hastily tuned spare boat taking third spot and Mike Parkington in fourth.

These four skippers spent the majority of the day battling between themselves in a class of their own, however JT didn’t have it all his own way taking only 10 of the sixteen bullets, Tim took 4 and JB took 2 before having a rudder servo failure in race 7 which took him a couple of races to sort.

Lunch was lovely and warming then back out to the racecourse for the second half which saw JT improve along with Mike P and JB and Tim not do quite so well, probably needing a snooze after a big lunch!

The racing was tight all the way through the fleet with Alan Fearnhead and Roy Kissick both taking a second place in one race.

Final reckoning saw the wind drop out and tea and cake was the order of the afternoon. JT took the day with 16 points, Tim took second with 27 followed by JB on 40 and Mike P on 45. Mike scored an incredibly consistent day and apart from JT he had the lowest discard score of the day counting six fourth places. Roger Lincoln took fifth spot with Liz T in sixth.

Congrats to all the skippers that took place, the final event is in 2 weeks time and although JT has wrapped the series up there is still all to play for between JB and Tim Long for second and third spots.