A day of numbers at The Bus Stop.

14 boats came out to play today. We had a visitor from New Plymouth who brought his DF95 and sailed some races with us. It was interesting seeing all the 65's surrounding the 95 like a flock of seagulls.

The breeze was from our normal quarter, NE and it was a bit unsteady varying from moderate to light etc. The light patches certainly threw some unpredictability into the placings. I did hear a few mutterings as the fleet overwhelmed the leaders.

We had a message from our RO a week back asking us to use sail numbers when calling infringements. Well, today it was implemented with gusto. It moved from on the water calling to general off the water discussion and became quite hilarious, but got the message across. A typical discussion could be - "168, is that a new hull you have?" Reply - "No 717 it's the old one with a coat of paint." Names were dropped and numbers were used for every discussion.

It was hard work getting a win today, our handicap skippers Trevor 22 and John 235 were getting excellent starts and carrying the breeze with them. That meant a super effort was needed by the fleet to mow them down. Sadly for the fleet that didn't happen a few times much to the delight of the Handicappers.

RTW's were highly contested today. Races 1 & 2 were won by Clive and Kent and race three, unidirectional, was a photo finish to Rob 501. Well done you winners.

Today I had a wonderful surprise when I went to my car after racing finished. There under the screen washer on the back of my car was a parcel. On opening it I found a wonderful painting of my boat No 179. I did not know who had left it until I found the signature at the bottom. It was 248 Phippsy. I rang him to thank him and he said it was his first painting of a boat and my boat very rarely gets a photo so that is how it came about. Thanks a million Pete 248. A photo of it below.

An apology from me that I had my camera on the wrong setting today and my photos are a disaster.
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