Saturday saw one of the most unusual and fun filled of Solway Yacht Club’s races take place on the River Urr opposite Kippford.
The Round Rough Adventure usually involves Cadet sailors racing round Rough Island in the river estuary.
However, because the wind was a very fresh west northwesterly gusting to the upper 20 miles per hour, it was decided that this was too risky for the young sailors involved.
Instead it was renamed the The Not Round Rough Adventure. This type of race, invented some years ago by the race officer of the day, Willie Patterson, involves not only racing round a pre-arranged course but also picking up floating objects which have been placed into the water for collection.
These include coloured plastic balls and inflated plastic birds such as pelicans and flamingos. Apart from points given to each place in the race, each object pulled from the water earned extra points which contributed to the final score. Fancy dress with a nautical theme is also encouraged.
An ovoid shaped course of approximately 1.5km in length was laid out, starting at the Solway Yacht Club pier, sailing upstream towards Palnackie for 400m then downstream 900m to just opposite the Anchor Hotel then back to the Solway Yacht Club pier. Four dinghies including two Bahias, one Feva and one Pico took part, crewed by 10 Cadets and one instructor.
The course proved testing in the weather conditions of the day and each boat capsized at some point in the race. Great credit to all of the young crews who righted each one as it happened and continued onwards thereafter.
At the end of the day the winners were the crew of Bahia Charlotte, Toby Iglehart and Jack Johnstone along with James Bishop (instructor) with 205 points. Second came the Bahia 664 crew with 180 points, third the Feva crew with 143 points and fourth the crew of the Pico with 66 points. Altogether a most exciting and rewarding day of sailing was had by all.
Sunday saw the seventh and eighth races of the club’s spring dinghy Sunday series, with Cadet race training using four Picos taking place simultaneously. Five boats took part in two main dinghy races on Rough Firth. These included Ian Murgatroyd (Finn 18), Stewart Mitchell (Finn 96), Keith Veasey (Finn 750), Stephen Gaughan and Richard Colbeck (Osprey 1287) and Chris Nurney (Dart 18).
The fastest boat by time round the course in the first race was the Osprey 1287 followed less than three minutes later by Finn 96 and in third place was Finn 18, less than another three minutes later. The fastest boat in the second race was the Osprey 1287 with the Dart 5742 in second place and Finn 18 third. Corrected timings and places were then modified by the application of the appropriate handicap numbers to each entry.
