Pied Piper picked a prime prize with a sonata class Bell Lawrie Scottish Series win at Tarbert last weekend. Alan Harper and his team of Alan, Eric and Dickielee filled their boots with many bottles of 10 year old Talisker as a reward for the hard bank holiday weekend’s racing.
They had to cling on with their nails and teeth and everything as the series went down to the final seconds of the final race. Going in to the 9th and last race on Monday any one from Blue Tack, So or Pied Piper could still win the series – So and Blue Tack were both only 2 points behind the Pipers. The Pipes were leading the race from the start but in the last few metres the situation was extremely tense; the 3 boats very close and tacking left for the extreme left shifts and very complex with many sports boats coming in for their port layline and making things difficult. Scruples in 4th place accelerated in front with a well executed right hand manoever avoiding the traffic to receive a well deserved gun and an overall 4th place. Blue Tack were put about by a sportsboat and looked in trouble but then cleared her air and came in 2nd – the Pi’s kept their heads and kept So firmly behind them to win by 1 point from Blue Tack.
This was an amazing series. With depression in England there was a stable and strong Easterly airflow across Scotland with accompanying hot sunshine. Our course area just out of Tarbert had some shelter so the winds we got were typically 12 – 20 kts and a relatively flat sea and did I mention the hot sun! Nine boats and nine races in 4 days. We had a couple of new teams with Rhapsody helmed by RS200 supremo Robbie Burns and Fiddlesticks showing promise in the first season while using older sails.
Unfortunately Fiddlesticks dismasted later on Friday. A quick call to Phil Evans and they popped down to the Lake District – as you do – to fetch a new mast and drove back overnight to join back in on Sunday. Big effort and they won the day’s CCC chairman’s special prize.
It’s probably fair to say that each of the top 4 boats had their day with Piper having the fun of Friday, So having a smashing Saturday with 2 wins, Dave Boatman’s Blue Tack won sunday and the Tait brothers in Scruples had their best race on manic Monday. But it was Pied Piper that kept the consistency going over the event.
Congratulations to the Piper Boys.
Did I mention the sun?
Neil McLure, So