The annual club away weekend to Roadford Lake took place on June 8th/9th. We hope you enjoy this colourful description of the event written by Chris Mulholland:
SHEARWATER ROADFORD VISIT
The weekend of 8/9 June saw the annual trip to Roadford Lake in Devon.
With sunshine and breeze forecast, all looked set for an excellent weekend to be shared with CVRDA.
The usual programme of relaxed sailing and racing was the plan, although there was an amount of trepidation as everyone retied on Friday evening with the wind rattling halyards in the dinghy park and a stiff northerly breeze blowing straight down the lake.
As anticipated, Saturday morning was bright and very breezy with various CVRDA members taking the view that their rather more delicate craft might not be up to the job. There was a certain amount of standing on the beach and “shall we, shan’t we” before our commodore led by example, and despite an interesting launch and recovery, returned in one piece.
With two fleets racing, including Roadford members on separate courses, the race officer did well to keep the fleets apart which was a relief to some of those in the faster boats not really wanting any close encounters with wood and varnish in conditions that might be described as “fresh to frightening”.
It was great to see the youngsters launch with Verity practising a few capsize recoveries in her new topper.
The Saturday evening BBQ, as ever, saw large quantities of protein consumed, although there is still plenty left over and I am told is in the freezer for next year!
Sunday saw the wind drop, with glorious sunshine the conditions could not be better for a top day at Roadford.
Three races were run back to back again with Roadford members joining and the CVRDA fleet racing on a separate course. The friendly but competitive banter between the RS400s was recommenced and it was good to see Beaver Fever back on the water. Results are on the Roadford Lake website, but in true tortoise and hare style The Mirror sailed by Simon Brewerton took the second race with the RS400 also well up the fleet in all three races and a good showing from Martyn Stubbs in the RS200.
Such was the success for those who travelled that people were still on the water late on Sunday and indeed some had the luxury of staying on until Monday.
This is a great venue and with excellent camping thrown in, there are few better locations in the South of England in terms of wide open spaces to stretch your legs. It was disappointing that so few members took advantage of what was a glorious weekend and one can only reflect that it was their loss and hopefully on reflection they will make a date in the diary for next year.
