Six Bosses lined up for the first shoot out of the 2001 season at Queen Mary, sponsored by the Bank Of Scotland. The forecast had been for gusty conditions and the hopeful were not disappointed. The launch was not the easiest in the world and resulted in a dash to the chandlers for one crew to replace a broken tiller extension. The course was a reasonably tight windward leeward which provided plenty of close encounters for the closely matched fleet.

The first race saw Chris Gandy first to the windward mark with Steve Bell and Julian Cramp close on his tail only for Chris to find that a bit of PPP with the kite would have helped. Steve Bell took over the lead and in a race where positions changed frequently led to the finish closely followed by Martin Sully and Julian Cramp. The second race was in slightly windier conditions and all the crews made good starts. First to the windward mark was Julian Cramp who gybed off into a hole to allow the rest to catch up! Racing was close right to the finish with Steve Bell taking first just a couple of boat lenghts ahead of Julian Cramp and Chris Gandy doing the same to Martin Sully for third. Lighter winds in the third race made little difference to the closeness of the racing although Steve by now had established a consistency in his racing by scoring another first followed by Robin Hyde back from tiller repairs and Julian Cramp. The evening saw a couple of shandys and an early night (no honest).

The second day was much the same as the first except for a couple of notable events. The first a rather embarrassing capsize by Chris at the windward mark causing mayhem and the second a port flyer by Julian in the 5th race which worked a treat which when repeated by someone in the last race meant them ducking the fleet.

All in all everyone had a great couple of days and are now looking forward to the Class Training Day 2/3 June at Datchet to hone those skills for the rest of the Gala Series.

Final Results were: