The Albacore Inlands were held on the weekend of 4th-5th of May at South Cerney Sailing Club. The lake is on the outskirts of the village and forms a part of the Cotswold Water Park.

Saturday morning brought windy conditions and a late forecast of 20mph for midday with gusts of 39mph. Not conditions for the faint-hearted and some surprise as the earlier forecasts had shown a weekend of 12-15pmh with sunshine. Time to put the shorts, 'sunnies' and sun cream back in the bag and pull on a dry suit!

22 boats registered but due to the conditions only 16 started the first race and two of these subsequently retired. The conditions were indeed challenging but the race officer was firm in his determination to test all with minimum one hour length races.

Race one quickly sorted out the sailing order and almost the pattern for the weekend as the lead boats headed up the first beat to the windward mark. It was definitely a 'pies' day but unfortunately John was unable to be part of the fleet so the front of fleet competition warmed up between four boats. No surprises that they were Nev Herbert in his new composite 'Grand Torino' from Judy Armstrong in her new plastic Ovington followed by Michael McNamara in his stunning Woof and Rob Lyme 4th in another plastic fantastic. The course set featured two reaching legs and with the conditions these were epic with some good very close racing up and down the fleet. The gusts and shifts started to take their toll and Phil Smith was soon seen sampling the local weed and sporting a novel wind indicator. Nigel Potter pulled up to 5th place with MMS in 'It wasn't me' 6th, Matt Thompson in his recently acquired 'Grand Tourismo' 7th, Andy Bayliss in a very fast Fairey in 8th, Phil Smith 9th and Andy Pearce 10th.

Race 2 was again challenging and almost a rerun of race 1 with the same boats taking the lead – Nev Herbert eventually won through followed by Judy in 2nd,Michael McNamara 3rd and Rob Lyme in 4th. This time Matt Thompson pulled up to 5th, Nigel Potter 6th, Graham Darvill in another brand new Ovington managed 7th, MMS 8th, Johnny Dellow 9th and Andy Bayliss 10th.

The fleet came in for a well- earned break to feed, water and do a few running repairs.

Race 3 got under way with slightly lighter conditions. This tempted two more boats to launch making a total of 14. Judy Armstrong moved into an early lead followed by Michael McNamara. Rob Lyme moved up to 3rd with Nev finishing in 4th. Nigel Potter managed another 5th with Phil Tindall from Maidenhead finishing in 6th.Phil Smith finished 7th, Andy Bayliss 8th, MMS 9th and Barry Wicks, another Maidenhead man, in 10th.

Amazingly, in spite of the challenging conditions on Day One, there were few breakages and the only recorded boat damage happened on the beach.

Sunday, Day Two, saw a slight reduction in wind strength and 21 boats launched for Race 4. The change in conditions did not change the head of the fleet and Judy took the race with Rob Lyne second, Mike McNamara third and Nev Herbert in fourth. Andy Bayliss managed to sail through to fifth and Mike Banner sixth ahead of Nigel Potter in seventh. Race 5 saw a few changes in the order. Judy sailed into an early lead but it was Graham Darvill in his new Ovington 8208 who managed second with Phil 'giving up the weed' Smith in third and Nigel Potter in fourth. Rob Lyne recorded his worst result with a fifth and Michael McNamara a disappointing sixth – well some of us would have been really happy to finish in sixth!

A break was taken for refuelling before the final race of the event. Those good with mental arithmetic had already calculated that Judy was now unbeatable with only 7 points. She still joined in Race 6 which was won convincingly by Michael McNamara from Rob Lyne and Nev Herbert. Nigel Potter was fourth and Judy fifth, Graham Darvill sixth and Phil Tindall seventh.

The final results were Judy and Paul Armstrong in first, Nev Herbert and Mark Fowler second and Michael Mcnamara and Flip Foulds in third. Judy thanked the race team, safety boats and galley for all their hard work and an excellent Inlands event.

Andy Pearce

NAA Events Secretary