Page 16 - Folk Boat Year Book 2021

Folkboat week 2020

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The 55 Folkboat week ran for the last week of August with Covid very much in
people’s minds. To help make it safer there was the two up rule unless in the same
family and only allowed to use white sails, no spinnakers. The 33 competitors, made
up of Nordics and 4 cruisers enjoyed nine races in very varied conditions. The usual
social activities were greatly curtailed but we managed to do outside prize giving each
day in a social distancing approved way.

The first race had 12/18knts of wind and gave perfect sailing conditions. The race
management team looking ahead at the forecast realized that it was all too obvious
that the south coast was in for a couple of bad days on Tuesday and Wednesday. The
decision was taken to hold Tuesday’s races on Monday, but the light winds, mist and
rain gave for a delayed start fortunately before competitors were setting off. The
race started in 5 knots, but the wind increased across the day for the second race.
True to the forecast the weather increased during the night and the morning brought
winds of 38/40 knots! A good job there was no sailing planned!

Thursday was the Winward /leewards day but with the last of the storm still dying
away the start was again postponed for an hour but just as the start sequence was
about to begin a massive burst of heavy rain rolled down from the Needles and
soaked the entire fleet!

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