Well done to Dave & Pippa for winning the double hander class in the Steve Nicolson race at Northampton on Saturday.  Five Merlins in top ten with 4 others sailing so obviously a good day.

Well done as sailing off a reduced handicap ...........

might that suggest it was still too high?

Might i suggest that the standard of the top merlin sailors that go to the winter handicap events is very high. The new designs of merlins are a good all round boat when it comes to handicap and can be fairly competitive in the majority of conditions.

A lot of other boats that compete in the handy cap event are only good in a small window of wind strengths. For example fireballs and 420s are excellent in the windy stuff and phantoms and national 12s are excellent in the really light stuff.