The festivitoties  the night before saw a slightly depleted bunch of intrepid sailors venture out for Perisher 5.  The forecast winds failed to materialise yet again but we were at least hiking hard most of the time in a shifty NE wind. Time and distance are the key measures for a good gate start unless, of course, Neil Davies, our pathfinder, gets a huge lift resulting in much of the fleet being several boat lengths behind.  Neil arrived first at the windward mark and clutched defeat from the jaws of victory, progressively dropping to 5th by the finish.  Hywel sailed in his usual conservative style and progressively built a decent lead to win from Chris, Alan and Mike.  The ILCA 6 saw a massive victory for Hayley, massive in terms of distance on the next ILCA 6 and it being her first race win.  Watch out Roberta and Ann!   Race 2 saw the shifty winds continue with Alan just getting ahead of Mike at the first windward mark only to drop his mainsheet (I really don’t like winter gloves) and lose a few crucial boat lengths. There was less place changing in this race with Alan securing victory from Mike, Hywel and Chris.  Hayley could not maintain her success from R1 but still finished 2nd to David P.