Page 30 - Yachter Spring/Summer 2021

30 RACING REPORTS
A REVIEW OF RSYC RACING IN 2020 AND OUR PLANS FOR 2021
At the start of 2020 none of us had even heard of COVID-19, and our racing programme got off to its usual flying start on Sunday 12th January with the first of the fortnightly Frostbite Series.
David Bartholomew’s Tokoloshe 3, racing with us for the first time, won that race in IRC Class 1 and never looked back, taking first place in all but one of the remaining races to finish first in the Series, closely followed by Mike Moxley’s Malice. In IRC Class 2 two boats spent the series swapping between first and second place. In the end Eric Williams’s Love in a Mist took the Series with David Greenhaigh’s J’ronimo falling behind in race 10 to finish a close second.
As we finished the Frostbite Series
with races 11 and 12 on 15th March, the country was just getting to grips with the pandemic. No racing at all was possible in April and May but we did manage to get going again on 4th June with races every
Thursday evening, initially limited to two people from the same household, and in a format that kept boats as far apart and as safe as possible. This could not be a regular series of races since some boats were still out of the water waiting for servicing
and crewing was a problem for many. We wanted people to be able to come and go as they chose so we pioneered a new format where handicaps were changed after every race to reflect performance in that race. If you did well one week, you would start a bit later the next. If your handicap was going up and your pursuit start time was getting later, you were doing well. Among the faster boats Gavin Howe’s Tigris did particularly well, whilst among the slower boats Eric
Williams’s Love in a Mist and Bob Gardner’s Enigma stood out. Among those who joined in were eight SB20s.At their request we started them all at the same time and over the set of races Oliver Hill’s Ethel came out ahead.
These Thursday pursuit races proved to be popular - people were keen to get back on the water once it was declared safe to do so, and we very quickly had more than 40 boats entered, with typically 20 turning up each week. So popular were they that we extended them to the middle of August. We ran the races in aid of the RNLI, a vital service which had been particularly badly hit by the effects of the pandemic, and we raised a total of £1000 for the cause.