Midland Footy League - July 2013
report by Peter Jackson

David Wilkinson (Iambus 46) relaxes between races

Our Youngest competitor Andrew Sturt (Razor3, 03) with his own boat

Nigel Rudd (ICE 02) having made some very necessary repairs

The weather today was calm with the odd puffs, so that correct reading of the wind shifts was absolutely critical. The Officer of the Day was Peter Jackson who set a triangle and dog bone course with all rounding to port. There were nine competitors today made up of Cotswold, Birmingham, Two Islands and Abington Park.

Our youngest member Andrew Sturt sailing a Ranger and a unarig was having a strong tussle with Dad Richard at the back of the fleet, which Dad eventually won.

Nigel Rudd was doing relatively well with several fifth places.

Sid Sims continues to improve with his new sails made for him by Peter Shepherd; he has learnt to set his sails in light conditions very well. Incidentally all that were sailing swing rigs had their maximum size sail ‘Justin Rig’ deployed today and used them throughout the event.

Graham Tite and Andrew Sturt were using Unarig sails.

David Wilkinson started with his Iambus 1, but later changed to Iambus 2. Incidentally Iambus is a technical term for a group of two or three syllables forming the basic unit of poetic rhythm.

Graham Tite came in at fourth place with seven fourth place wins.

Now we are getting to the nitty gritty with third place taken by Paul Risdale with eight second place wins.

Now First and second place for this competition will see one of the last two competitors in an unassailable league points score and crowned 2013 Midland League Champion, so Peter Jackson had to win today to stop Peter Shepherd from achieving this goal. Well it was a hard won fight with the lead going to and fro between the pair, with just one point between them at lunchtime.  Peter Shepherd finally came through with a purple patch in races 11 through to 15 to take the point’s win from Peter Jackson. So he just keeps his 100% record so far in all MFL competitions this year and achieves one of his ambitions in footy sailing.

It was a most entertaining days racing in very difficult conditions, which required great skill to read the wind shifts and take them immediately, those who were slow were inevitably left behind and if you got held up in the pack sometimes there was nowhere to go so there was inevitable penalty turns.

So the standard of sailing progresses throughout the fleet. The self regulation worked well and we all went home friends.

Posh sails man Graham Tite (1299, 40) set to restart after lunch

Master builder Paul Risdale (WICE 53) finally getting to grips with soft sail set ups

Andrew Sturt & Dad, Richard (1299, 04) change batteries during the lunch break

.	Midlands Footy League
.	Scorecard
.	July 2013							Race																																	Discards					Final
.	No	Name	Sail No	Boat	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	Total	1	2	3	Total
.	1	Peter Shepherd	65	ICE	3	1	3	1	1	3	1	1	3	4	1	2	1	1	1	2	29	3	3	4	19
.	2	Peter Jackson	30	Red Box	1	2	1	2	3	1	3	2	1	3	4	1	6	2	3	1	36	3	4	6	23
.	3	Paul Risdale	53	Wice	5	3	2	3	2	5	2	6	2	2	2	4	2	4	2	4	50	5	5	6	34
.	4	Graham Tite	40	1299	2	7	4	4	4	4	4	4	8	5	3	5	9	5	4	5	77	7	8	9	53
.	5	David Wilkinson	46	Iambus	7	4	7	10	6	8	10	3	5	1	5	3	7	7	7	3	93	10	8	10	65
.	6	Sid Sims	05	1299	4	5	8	6	7	7	5	5	4	7	6	6	4	3	5	6	88	8	7	7	66
.	7	Nigel Rudd	02	ICE	10	9	5	5	5	6	6	9	6	8	8	7	5	6	6	7	108	10	9	9	80
.	8	Richard Sturt	165	1299	6	8	6	8	9	2	7	8	7	6	7	9	3	8	8	9	111	9	9	9	84
.	9	Andrew Sturt	03	Razor 3	8	6	9	7	8	9	8	7	9	9	9	8	8	9	9	8	131	9	9	9	104