We're now back from the Bell Lawrie Scottish Series 2005 having had a pretty good time. As anyone will have noticed or read elsewhere it was a series which showed Loch Fyne at its worst and its best. Friday was absolutely grim and was definitely one of the worst days of racing that I can remember. Not that I can remember much. We had done quite well in the second race until we ran into a hole two boat lengths from the finish line at which time the rest of the fleet either steamed through on their own momentum or stopped beside us. What with the soaking rain it basically redefined miserable. We wimped out of racing on Saturday thus throwing away any chance of a decent place in the series. We went out to the start line for a look and bobbed about recording gusts of up to 40 knots but eventually decided not to start such was our fear of breaking stuff with some relatively inexperienced crew on board. Downwind would certainly have been interesting but another time maybe. Our series of foul-ups in subsequent races I think justified the decision. Then on Sunday the loch showed us its sparkling best with brilliant sunshine and 12-18 knots or so of breeze. We had hoped that we might have done a bit better than 8th in the second race.

Monday was another good day with the forecast of no wind and maybe just a little more later being incorrect again. We had further crew changes involving loss of our bowman and addition of Mrs S and younger daughter. We started with not a great deal of wind but had a really nice race where we pulled a second. By the last race the wind was up to 15k and we struggled with an increasingly awful series of foul-ups possibly the worst of which was being carried by Playing FTSE from our leeward mark to halfway to theirs before we could manoevre out of their way. After that the objective was not to be last and we managed that by one place.
In all the event served its purpose for us which was to get the new boat going. We seem to have worked up in light winds at least. However crew is all important and as we had some first timers and didn't have the same crew complement on any two consecutive days our striking inconsistency was to be expected.

In Class 2 Bateleur 97 and Tundra which of course usually feature there or thereabouts collided with each other in the first race on saturday, which prompted them both to struggle in that race and skip the second one. With discards gone Tundra picked up a black flag on the Sunday, and Bateleur was recalled in the final race on the Sunday which given the naure of the course (fetch/reach) prompted a quick retiral. The Bavaria boys will be happy with their Class 2 win with Sidney the Match 42 which will now be shipped back to the South Coast. Local Bavaria 38 'Salamander' which was expected to do well dropped its mast on Saturday ( I think that's its second mast loss) so game over there. Sloop John T did very well to hold a third place in that most competitive of classes.

Class 1 and the overall trophy were won by Tiamat, a brand new out-of-the-wrapper Mills 40 in its first event and sailed by its Irish crew topped up (as are all the top boats) by a selection of rock stars. They managed an impressively consistent scoreline which Johnathan Anderson's Playing FTSE could not match although pulling a creditable second in a very hot class.

Top places in Sigma 33s were close with St Joan 2 points in front of Colin Porteous's Squawk which had a narrow victory over Carmen for second place.

More comments and hopefully a few more pics later.

At least we made it to the series unlike Megawat from Howth.
Read the story here.

The Scottish Series Tarbert Outbound return race for the Tarbert Shield (does the winner have to display it back to front?) and £500 was held in a beautiful sailing day with Arran looking magnificent and under 10k of breeze. It was a beat which became quite one sided further south until the wind almost failed at Garroch Head. Troika, with just four of us on board crept through the Tan under spinnaker and I think we were first Class 2 boat over the line with quite a substantial gap behind us. The results for the Largs race are now out and you can view them here.