It was a pleasure to welcome Mrs Underwood to present the prizes for this year’s Underwood Memorial Trophy aka "Bob’s Revenge". The strong gusts of wind tested the seven skippers who turned out with Phil Parsons being the first casualty of the day, with a broken winch before the competition even started. All boats were fitted with the number 2 rigs and even with these, were leant over to the maximum. Brian Hartley started the day off by winning the first two races with Paul and Roger in 2nd place respectively. It then became a dog fight between Roger and Brian with Roger triumphant for the next five races, and Brian being 2nd in three of them. Collisions, submarining and loss of control particularly around Buoy 5 were common. George’s submariner experience saw him take four second places but sadly he was well down the order in the other races partly due to a broken shroud, which pushed him down to fourth for the day. Race 8 saw arch rivals Roger and Brian get tangled – again due to a sudden gust making control impossible and leaving them unable to finish that race, and ending Brian’s day with a broken rudder servo. Whilst they both untangled themselves, Paul managed to win races 8 and 9 with George in second place and Stuart achieving his highest position of the day in third. Sadly for him, a mistake of going on the wrong side of the finish line buoy, robbed him of second place! Roger regained his composure and cruised to victory in race 10 despite Dave Johnston having changed down to his storm suit for the last two races. Paul became the next casualty - again with a broken shroud.

All in all, a testing but entertaining day which saw Roger win the Shield comfortably. Paul was the runner up with Brian taking the third spot.

Thanks must go to John Foster for giving up his time to score, and keep us all in check and of course to Mrs Underwood for her support.