ACT FOUR
EXTREME FOOTY 2015
Two Islands Radio Yacht Club

Our first vist to the East Midlands in 2015 and the current competiton leader Mike Ewart was unfortunately unavailable for this one, this left the field open to be dominated by the Fat Boy Slims.

A simple close to shore upwind downwind course was set, which I suspect was a relief to some of the skippers although there was some consternation when they found they had to go around three times! The final upwind very inshore leg proved tricky and certainly introduced some jeapody into proceedings.
With a bit of encouragement everyone managed to count to three, with the wind shifting around slightly in the afternoon and the addition of a wing mark the job of remembering how many times around you had been, became easier.

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Once the formalities of boat measurement were out the way the racing got underway, this time Geoff Raygada (41, Fat Boy Slim) took an early lead winning the first three races, a couple of poor results whilst he went up a sail (A rig) allowed Peter Shepherd (65, Fat Boy) who won the next three, to come back at him. Bubbling away under the surface was Peter Jackson (30, Fat Boy Slim) who after starting slowly, put on the afterburners around lunchtime.

At lunch Peter Jackson & Goeff Raygada were equal on points with Peter Shepherd one point behind and two further skippers no more than five points behind him, all very tight indeed. This was reflected in some of the races where more often than not you could throw a D rig over the fleet as it finished.

Peter Jackson started the afternoon session looking like he was going to run away with competition, two wins from two giving him a healthy 5 point lead over Peter Shepherd, however Peter S then knuckled down and put in an imprssive series of results for the rest of the event catching PJ's total in Race13 and this time managing to have a final race sucessful double points round.
Further back an early contender Geoff Raygada faded and new to Footy racing at this level, Tom Steel (58, Fat Boy Slim) who had been scoring consistently throughout the event, came to the fore. Letting a win in race 12 get away from him under pressure from the two Peters, and then taking a well deserved win in race 13 by a country mile.
For this outstanding first performance and the beautiful quality of  build of his Fat Boy Slim, Tom was honoured with the ACT 4 Above & Beyond Award.

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Paul Risdale (53, Wice) was hampered early on by a lack of Footy time on the water, this meant his results were inconsistent early on, however there were enough good results on his scorecard especially towards the later stages of this event to believe that he could be a force within the Footy class if he wanted to.
Stalwart of the Footy Class David Wilkinson (46, Breithorn) struggled under the weight of Fat Boys, the high aspect ratio una rigs not doing him any favours on the downwind legs where often broaching was an issue.

With the first discard being included in the Series table, Mike Ewart retains the lead although Peter Shepherd has closed to within two points.

The closeness of the fleet and the good nature with which the racing was undertaken led to another hugely  enjoyable event.
The next Footy event is  the MYA National & Junior National Championships, Saturday 16th May at Watermead MBC, Ayelsbury and this is followed by the Extreme Footy Series first visit to Abington Park MYC for ACT5 on Saturday 6th June 2015.

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Tom Steel is this Act's Extreme Footy Above & Beyond Award Winner

Act 4 Winner Peter Shepherd recieves his prize from Peter Jackson.