20/21 June 2009 Dusk till Dawn ‘ Starlight Challenge’
We hosted the above event on Saturday night with a degree of trepidation.
We didn’t really know what to expect as none of us had done anything like this before. It turned out that we had planned it well and the event was a great success, it was good fun for all concerned and passed without a hitch.
It was a cloudy night with no moon so it got pretty dark causing a few people to run aground on one particular tack if they didn’t quite judge it right. We had attached glow sticks to the course marker buoys and from a distance it was possible to mistake these for the navigation lights we had attached to the dinghies. So several times people found themselves sailing towards a moving object which caused a degree of disorientation when the mistake was realised. Winds were light but not so light as to make the event boring. We used six toppers with teams of mainly two taking it in turn. Refreshments were available throughout the night and a blazing brazier outside just finished things off nicely.
We called a halt at 3.30 am as it was light enough to read our check sheet without a torch. The final results were 1st Andrew & Peter Baker 41 laps 2nd Richard & Chris Sykes 40 laps , 3rd Charles & Stuart 39 laps,
4th Ian & Gwyn, 36 laps 5th Peter & Colin35 laps , 6th Dylan, Dave, Andrew & Elaine with 33 laps.
Hopefully this will now become an annual event. The next ‘Dusk til Dawn’ due to be held in June 2012 was cancelled on two occasions due to unsuitable weather. We will try again in 2014
