The first DiZeBra after the longest day, but due to the phenomena that the lightest morning and longest evening are not aligned only next week the evenings start to get shorter. A north west wind, forecast to decrease over the evening and ending with rain was a big improvement from the storms causing the previous DiZeBra to be cancelled.

 

Good turnouts with 9 keelboats and 25 dinghies although some regular faces are already on holiday. The wind turned out to be very tricky with big puffs and holes, each puff with its own direction.

 

In the dinghies a pin end start and free air after the tack to sail to the top mark paid off both races but hitting the corner felt risky due to the shifts. Upwind was about keeping your boat going and downwind, sitting in a wind lane.

 

What happened on the race course, I don’t really know. I could fill chapters with what my telltales were doing but …. wasn’t looking around much, and hadn’t even thought that I might win - the FD was so far away it was out of sight. But turns out that my return to solo sailing is going well, but also that I have to work hard to stay ahead of my husband Sijbrand who was third. Commiserations to the ilcas with OCS.

 

Congratulations to Wouter on winning the keel boats in the Randmeer followed by Bryan in the MaxFun.

 

Elaine Turner

Solo 673