THE 2008 SUPER CUP, Sunday, 13th July.

All week it had been miserable - wet, windy, cool - and the long range forecast was no better. I had fears for the Super Cup of which I was the organiser. But fortunately the forecasters had not got it quite right, and it turned out to be a really nice summer's day - one of the very few we had this year.

Consequently the turnout was good, and 24 boats entered the racing.
The format was 5 2 lap races of which 4 were to count. But where was the wind? Colin Gent as race officer went round the lake to find it, and all he could say was he spotted a few bits. So all he could do was set a "round the block" course, which then took ages for us to complete, with the mini-breeze shifting all the time, often by 180 degrees.
We only managed to sail two laps in the first race, and that took nearly one hour. For the following 3 races - one more in the morning and two after lunch, the course was shortened to one lap only. The 4th race turned out to be a disaster with the breeze dying from nothing to nothing at all. To end the misery Colin had to finish the leaders prematurely at No. 2 from a distance as he could not get there in time to set a finishing line.
Big debate afterwards of the "you can't do that" nature, so Colin decided to abandon this race. But it would not have changed the top placings. Thus only 3 out of the 4 results were to count.

Despite the lack of wind it was a lovely day - bright warm sunshine, an excellent lunch prepared by Anne Darvill and her crew, grilled by Chris Brooks and eaten by most of us. Nice tea and cakes in the afternoon, and trophies and prizes for the top 4 and the leading under 16. Our lovely Commodore Catherine Turner got again smothered in kisses by the prize winners and out of the 24 entries there were 18 finishers. A very good day indeed!

Result:

1st Dave & Sandra Wilson, Graduate, 3 1st places 2.25 points
2nd Greg Hart and Jane Cadd, Enterprise, 5 points
3rd Chris Parker, Solo, 10 points
4th Harold Grenfell, Laser, 11 points

Top Junior Tom French, Laser, 6th overall with 20 points

Many thanks also to all those who came to help, particularly John Wilson who had travelled all the way from Hampshire and who worked out all the results and of course to Colin Gent who had a very difficult job as race officer which he did extremely well.

Wolfgang Ansorge