The forecast glorious weather but light winds eventuated, but if anything it made a holiday weekend in the EBOP more appealing.
A good fleet of 25 Lasers, as well as 6 Jolly boats, 5 Zephyrs and 10 Opti's were on the water.
Great to see 5 women Laser entries, all sailing full rig!

On Saturday the race committee did great to get 4 races in, and even if relatively short triangle or triangle + Windward-Leeward. Sailing in Ohiwa harbour gives plenty of tactical options playing with the tides and sandbanks.

Regular visitors from Panmure, Ian Wallace, Paul Page and Andrew Coffin again gave top locals Barry Cutfield, Ken Tarboton and Mark mackintosh a run for their money.

The club put on a wonderful buffet that evening, with some 60 people cosily filling the club house.

Sunday saw very light winds again in the morning, but threatened to die out. The first race got started for a scheduled triangle with some 2-5 knots of breeze from the east, against an outgoing tide of 1 to 3 knots from the west. Interesting sitting with transom to the start line running at 'full' speed just to hold position. After a very quick beat to the top mark the fleet went for a reach into a channel current to the wing mark, hugging the banks as much as anyone dared. Leading around the wing mark was Luuk Batenburg, trying to keep cool with Paul Page on his transom. Not far behind the rest of the fleet bunched up for some fun at the mark. The second reach had to cross two other channels with a dying breeze. Local knowledge saw Barry Cutfield sneak along the tidal lee of the middle bank to cut across the current well below the bottom mark, rounding it and finishing to win the regatta just before the breeze gave up, so no-one else could get around, let alone finish within the time limit.  Funniest race result ever with one 1st and 24 DNF's!

- Luuk Van Basten Batenburg

Photo - Hannah Morrison