Report by Andrew Dean

The weather forecast unsurprisingly reduced the fleet form last week’s 16 to just 4, although your correspondent might have competed had he not lost an argument with a drill.  With winds in excess of 20 knots in the Irish Sea, with a direction of just south of east, giving it a miss seemed sensible. A temperature of 3 degrees added to the unpleasantness.

But this did not deter Jerry Colman (Finn), George Pearce (RS Tera Sport) and Bob Love and Jason Hyatt (both Laser Radials), who seemed to enjoy the challenging conditions.  The wind arrived in medium gusts from every direction, not always easy to see from the water surface’s appearance.  Please click here for the full report – Watling Streetworks Winter Series – 16 February 2025

Write-up by Jerry Colman

Sunday morning’s races were started in a cold, grey and gusty Nor’Easterly. A fine fleet of 16 boats shepherded by Peter Hoosen-Owen and Kat Osbourn in our patrol boat ‘Hilary’ braved the conditions and if they worked hard enough were suitably rewarded.  Anyone who completed the course deserves props for guts and skills and for some for repeated recoveries from multiple capsizes of all modes. 

When your correspondent left Ramsey at around 0830 to prepare for the race the surf was roaring in Ramsey Bay so any dinghy sailing seemed a remote prospect. However, it’s never what you expect at Injebreck so on arrival at the dinghy park at around 0900 it looked manageable, if cold although with some quite strong gusts. Hoisting the sails resulted in some increasingly loud sail flapping in the gusts and for some of us a concern that it could be a bit much. But once the sails are up you gotta go and so it was. The full write-up can be found here – Watling Streetworks Winter Series – 9 February 2025

Another Sunday morning in the Baldwin Valley that missed the winter gales that the rest of the Island were experiencing.  I’d like to say the sun was shining too for the first of the February Watling Streetworks Series of dinghy racing but it did at least stop raining for a great fleet of 15 boats.

The wind blowing mostly up the valley allowed the Race Officer to set a square course, windward/leeward and two reaching legs at each end of the lake.  In the relative shelter of the valley there is no substitute for a large sail.  Jerry Colman (Olympic Finn) followed by Andrew Dean (Grey D-Zero) comfortably lead the fleet, at times by quite some margin. Click here for the full write-up – Watling Streetworks Winter Series – 2 February 2025

Storm Eowyn warnings for the end of this week, but conditions could not have been more different for dinghy racing on West Baldwin reservoir last Sunday morning.

The gentle south easterly wind blew mostly up the lake, the odd waft here and there, difficult to call then gusts and of course the usual deadly hollows.

The fleet of thirteen started Race one and quickly sorted themselves out, large sails at the front, Jerry Colman (Finn), Andrew Dean (D-Zero) and Ralph Kee (ILCA 7).  The juniors in their Tera Sport and Pro sails to the rear. Full report here – Watling Streetworks Winter Series – 19 January 2025

Dinghy racing for 2025 started on Sunday morning, following the previous week’s issues snow, dinghy’s snowed in and crews snowed out!

The Watling Streetworks January Series sailed on the West Baldwin reservoir, snow still on the surrounding hills and a forecast of building wind during the morning.  Mostly light winds with the occasional gentle gust, enough to have most crews hiking (leaning out) hard.  The lack of the usual vicious calms normally associated with Baldwin reservoir allowed more commitment – without falling backwards. Click her for the full report – Watling Streetworks Winter Series – 12 January 2025