Nineteen sailors arrived at Chipstead Sailing Club on a bright chilly Saturday morning. Two sailors had travelled quite a distance (Middlesbrough and Yeovil) to participate in this ranking event.
Registration and briefing complete, so racing commenced just after 10:00am. The course was 150 meter windward leeward course set into a westerly breeze of around 10mph gusting 15mph.
With the breeze up in the higher range for their A1 rigs these boat stretched their legs and went quickly around the course. Racing progressed with Graham Bantock taking the first race, Peter Stollery the second and Tony Edwards the third. Rob Vice took the win in race 5 and by the lunch break these four sailors were heading the leader board with Peter at the top. Several sailors were changing rigs during the session.
Lunch break was taken at 12:40 with everyone sting down together to enjoy the delicious beef stew and french bread. Our thanks go out to Peter Crisp for the meal. This also gave a welcome respite from the chilly breeze. RYA Judge Robert Owen updated the fleet on a couple of points of sailing which had caused some issues during the morning. The fleet took his wisdom onboard as no further incidents occurred.
After lunch we returned to good competitive racing in more challenging conditions requiring rig changes to maintain control.
The competitive nature of the sailors resulted in a couple of general recalls but the starts were mostly well behaved.
Rob and Graham both had very successful afternoons closely followed by Tony. The overall position was very close up to the last three races where Peter unfortunately suffered winch drum problems.
In the latter stages of the event the rescue facilities were tested as the gusts caused a few incidents of boats getting locked together. Race 14 saw seven boats requiring retrieval. Thanks to Stuart for his efforts in the rescue boat to catch the yachts before they drifted too far down the lake thus allowing them to get back into action in the following race
Sixteen races were completed before the fleet adjourned to the clubhouse to warm up and enjoy a hot drink and cake.
With the results calculated, the Commodore of Chipstead sailing club Steve McCann welcomed all visitors to the club and gave a bit of history and size of the club (over 1000 members) before presenting the prizes to the winners from 6th Place upwards culminating in the presentation of the Acorn trophy to Rob Vice.
Attached are the complete list of sailors in their finishing positions and a few pictures taken by Stuart and which show the weather and close competition of the day.
Overall a great days sailing for all and thanks to all who assisted on the day in all departments.
Report by Garven McKie and Dave Allinson
Photos by Stuart Ord-Hume
