So the DF65 Nationals went of this weekend with 41 skippers taking part in the end. Lots of great racing, lots of great social, all in all a great weekend, summed up by the picture below. Read all about the racing and the results on the Results page.

So we are a couple of days out from the start gun for the 2017 DF65 Nationals and we have 46 entries ready to compete for the coveted John Wesley Trophy which has spent a couple of years on a shelf in Yorkshire. There is a good mix of abilities taking part with some first timers along with some more seasoned competitors, all of whom will no doubt have an awesome time both on and off the racecourse.  Good luck to all those competing.

DF65’s at Eastbourne earlier in the season

Moving on from the Nationals our next TT event is taking place at Keighley over the weekend of the 14th & 15th of October. For those of you who haven’t ever visited the club up on the moors, it’s certainly well worth the effort. Details of the event, including the all important Notice of Race, are posted here.  Whilst John is away for ten days he will try and confirm your entry to the event as soon as he is able to.

Keighley’s sailing water, Weecher, on a nice sunny day.

Looking further ahead we have the season finale at Lincoln over bonfire weekend which promises to be another great weekends sailing and social.

As the DF Racing Class Association we took a stand at the 2017 RYA Dinghy show which was a really good way to promote our classes to the wider sailing public. It turned out that lots of people already know about the boats and we were overwhelmed by the response to our attendance at the show.  We have now secured the same stand for the 2018 RYA Dinghy Show which takes place over the weekend of 3rd & 4th March. Come and see us and get your 2018 season off to a great start.

2017 DF Racing UK Dinghy Show Stand…busy busy!

Talking of 2018 we ave some dates for the Class Championships.  The DF65 Nationals will be taking place at Gosport over the weekend of the 19th & 20th May and the DF95 Championships will take place up on the moors at Keighley over the weekend of 7th & 8th July.  Get those dates into your diaries so you don’t book anything else for those weekends…unlike me who has a wedding anniversary and a childs birthday planned for those weekends…..

Great Championship Racing – Photo Sue Brown.

There is also rumor of a DF95 Global Championship for 2018 as well….stay tuned!

The Fleetwood weekend was a mix of local competitors with an odd visitor who all had fun, Saturday wasn’t the best Fleetwood direction, but good sailing was definitely had on Sunday with the DF95’s. Results posted on the Fleetwood site – Here

See you pondside sometime soon.

As promised we have had a communication from Tim @ Fleetwood with a programme for the DF weekend  of the 16th and 17th September. No need for me to post much other than a link to the relevant Fleetwood web page,  – clicky here to take a look.

Don’t forget to pay for your Nationals entry either…..

So we are pretty much out of August now and into the beginning of those halcyon Autumn days where the wind blows old boots and the C and D rigs are dug out.

There are a couple of upcoming events that are worthy of note. The first and most obvious of the events is the upcoming DF65 Nationals to be held at Eastbourne towards the end of September. We have already posted plenty of details about the event but here are a few more bits of housekeeping from the Eastbourne Race Team.

“Would you be kind enough to put out a reminder to competitors to ensure they have complied with the entry fee requirement by 8th September 2017 – closing date for entry.

Entry is only confirmed by receipt of the appropriate fee. There are a large number who have not yet paid.

An allowance is place in the NOR for foreign competitors, who can supply an email copy of their travel bookings and pay in cash on arrival. This is to help them if making international transfers is difficult or expensive in their country of origin.

All UK based skippers are required to have paid their entry fee in advance by cheque or bank transfer. Relevant payment instructions are contained in the NOR.

Updating the list of entrants on the EDMYC website is a manual operation, however, when an entry is received via the online entry form an acknowledgement email is generated. There may be a delay before a new entrants name is shown on the entry list”

So there we are folks, to make it simple, please make sure you’ve paid your entry fee before the 8th September.

So in preparation for the event there are a couple of warmup events to get involved with. Both events are up North I’m afraid, but I’m sure those of you down South could sort something out and let us know and we’ll post it up here.

The first event is a one day DF65 pop up at Keighley, scheduled for Sunday 10th September. Pit your skills against Mr Tushingham for a jolly good training session.  Briefing at 10ish and racing til 1530ish. You’ll need your own sarnies for lunch but tea and coffee will be available.

The second event is a DF65 and DF95 double header at Fleetwood on the 16th and 17th September. Saturday sees the DF65 fleet on the water and Sunday sees the DF95’s having a play. As usual there will be good size fleets of both boats in attendance. We are currently awaiting final details of the event and when we have them we’ll post them.

So there we have it, some racing to do before there’s more racing to do.

Don’t forget to complete your entry to the Nationals by making payment and if you haven’t yet entered then you’ve got just over a week to get an entry in to the guys at Eastbourne.

Many thanks to Peter & Judith Baldwin once again for getting the updated TT score sheet to us in quick order, gold star guys. Not such good form from myself who has taken an age to get them posted up on the results page….must try harder.

Anyhow, check out the Results page where you’ll find the up to date TT scores to Round 13. Unlike the previous results we have posted it seems that the score table is now too massive to put up as a Jpeg, so we’ve added a link to a PDF version of the score sheet….much easier to read I’m sure you’ll agree!

So after a few pints and a bit of social on Saturday evening we all went to bed with the promise of some better weather and a bit of breeze on Sunday morning. At midnight it was still raining cats and dogs and I wasn’t sure we’d see anything else.

Sunday morning appeared and as forecast we had bright sunshine and some fine looking breeze to go with it. Back up to the moors and having avoided the most belligerent sheep I’ve ever met there were a good number of skippers at the pond, all ready for action with A rigs set.

Off we go! – Photo Sue Brown

Ken Binks was quick out of the blocks, posting three wins from the first four races with John Tush only managing a couple of second places, a fourth and a fifth in the first four. Nigel Brown, Tim Long and DF95 newbie and DRSC member Dave Kent were a little off the pace but the three of them were to battle for the final podium step for the rest of the day. Further down the field the battles were just as intense and as we know from previous events it doesn’t take too big a mistake to find boats whizzing past you leaving you with a lot of work to do to recover a decent finish.

Race 5 saw Tushy wake up and remember that he was racing and he promptly won the next two, took a third from race 7 and then took the next 5 races. Ken posted a bunch of second places and won the race JT didn’t. Nigel, Tim & Dave continued the titanic struggle to grab the third place with Dave taking two DNF’s which didn’t help his cause. Nigel and Tim traded places during the mid session and third could have gone either way.

Liz Tushingham and Wayne Stobbs were locked in their usual battle and John Smith and Jim LaRoche keeping the battle on its toes. Even the tail end of the fleet were locked in battles of their own throughout the day with DRSC skipper Neil Harvey and well travelled John Howard from Poole being kept honest by DRSC members Nick Whyte and David Brooke.

The downwind leg was a rapid affair! – Photo Sue Brown

Race thirteen was lucky for Tim who scored a win from Ken & Nigel with JT in fourth with normal service being resumed for 14 with JT in top spot from Ken and Nigel with Jim LaRoche from Coalhoue Fort scoring his best result of the day with fourth spot. Ken took 15 from JT, Tim and Nigel.

16 through 20 saw JT seal his win whilst Ken took a discard of a third, yes really he was that consistent all day, Dave scored a second with Tim fourth whilst Nigel had issues and ended eleventh.

Breeze on! – Photo Sue Brown

The battle for sixth was won by Liz by a reasonable margin from Wayne. Fifth went the way of Dave, who would have done better after a strong finish after another DNF in race 14. The monumental day long battle for third was taken by Nigel by just two points from Tim.

However even Nigel on 65 points was a country mile behind the two class acts of the day, JT and Ken, who scored 22 and 29 and really did show us all how it should be done.

Sundays top six

The wind was good all day, top end of A rig all day and perhaps a little beyond at times, the morning races and a couple of afternoon ones were sailed from the South bank before the course was reset and the remaining afternoon races were sailed from the North bank. The race team were very on point all day and worked tirelessly all weekend to ensure that the skippers got the best of the available conditions. Many thanks to the DRSC team, without you guys we wouldn’t be able to enjoy our sport to the same degree, we all hope that you’ll host us again in the future.

Results

Next on the calendar is the DF65 Nationals at Eastbourne in late September.

Sue Brown was, once again, was on hand with her camera on both days and got some great shots of the action which can be viewed by clicking here.

There is also a Dartmoor RSC facebook page which, if you are social media savvy, can be accessed by clicking here.

Having spent the best part of 7.5 hours in the van on Friday making my way to Dartmoor RSC it was a pleasant surprise to be greeted by Ken Binks and Nigel Brown at the lakeside along with several of the DRSC members who had pitched up to ready the water for the DF Racing UK weekend.

Despite the horizontal rain and low cloud myself, Nigel and Ken put boats on the water and had a bit of a tune up before the rain and wind really arrived and we abandoned to a local pub for the evening.

Saturdays forecast was suitably poor, with very little breeze forecast to come from many directions along with bucket loads of rain too.

Twenty two skippers, a good mix of locals and travellers, braved the conditions which, at first, didn’t look too terrible and the two seeding races were held to determine the two fleets in not too much rain and a reasonable bit of breeze. If you had one, an A plus rig was the thing to have today, the first time it has been utilised in competition properly here in the UK and well worth the investment.

An A plus rig – very handy today!

Nigel Brown won his seeding with Liz Tush winning hers whilst husband John could only manage a third place finish in his seeding.

Nigel went on to win the next two races before another winner, Ken Binks, was to take the top step of the podium. Race 5 saw John Tush take his first win of the day after a slow start and 6, 7 and 8 also went Tushy’s way which we put down to a good lunch.

After a couple of thirds and some discards it seems that a  good lunch had also done the well travelled Tim Long the world of good and he posted some good results, including a win in race 9, during the afternoon session.

With the wind fading and Tushy taking race 10 it was decided that the skippers and race team had had enough and once again the rain had set in.

With ten races completed with the two fleets it was Tushy who took the win from Nigel by 2 points, Tim was 6 points adrift of Nigel in third and Ken was just three behind Tim. There was a reasonable gap back to the next group of Wayne Stobbs, Liz Tush, Dave Kent and James Scrimshaw.

The top six DF65 skippers

Much good racing was had by all, the race team did a grand job in challenging circumstances and the skippers were very well behaved at this great venue.

Tomorrow sees the DF95 fleet take to the water when we are perhaps promised some wind and even a little sunshine.

Results

Tick tock, the clock is ticking on the Dartmoor RSC DF Racing event which takes place next weekend, 29th & 30th July on the hills above Plymouth. Not quite the uptake we had hoped for, with some of the usual suspects on duty elsewhere that weekend and Buzz Coleman who’s racing with the DF crowd in San Diego.

If you are umming and ahhing as to whether you’ll see some good racing, well I’m sure you will and if you live on the South Coast you have no excuses not to get involved. Any of the DRSC club members that fancy racing, please get involved too, it’ll be a whole heap of fun.

For details of who has already entered and how to enter yourself please click here and take a look.

In other news, entries for the DF65 Nationals in September is hovering around the 30 mark, lots of time to enter this one, go on, you know you want to!!

Evening all, just a quick reminder about the upcoming DF Racing events. We have a double header DF Racing weekend at Dartmoor RSC which is a new venue for us and looks superb, this is detailed in the post below this one and is well worth a look and is a chance for those skippers from the local area to pit their skills against the top UK skippers who are travelling from all over the country. Details are here.

We also have an early reminder about the DF65 Nationals which are happening in September at the Eastbourne club. There is now an online entry list and an online entry form, both available by clicking here

We also have two other weekend events, one in October at Keighley and the final one at Lincoln on bonfire night weekend. Get yourselves along and enjoy some racing, 100 plus people can’t be wrong!

So July 1st sees the entry open for the DF Racing TT events at Dartmoor RSC which take place on the 29th & 30th July.

We have posted up the NoR’s for both days along with some more general info about the area and the club which we hope will be useful for those of you who will be travelling some distance to take part, click here to take a look.

We will post up a link to the MYA online entry system when it goes live and this will be the easiest method of entry for the weekend.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the Dartmoor RSC lake which looks a little bit like the famous lake at Keighley….could we be in for some good breeze on the moors, get your entry in and find out!

Dartmoor RSC lake.