Annual Regatta - 9th & 10th July

Founders Cup 9th and 10th July 2022

A very hot weekend with even hotter competition for the coveted trophy this year. Saturday witnessed truly champagne sailing with a force 3-4 and wall to wall sunshine all day, although the shifts were difficult to anticipate the beat of 1 to W was good for every race on both days with only the off wind legs as the options for the OD.

We introduced a mini series for the Juniors on the Saturday ,very pleased to see 6 boats sail 3 windward /leeward races in the quite boisterous conditions with no mishaps or too may swims, the opportunity was also taken for 5 other juniors to go for a cruise near to to the course.

Meanwhile the older competitors in the main fleet ignored the example given to them by the less chronically challenged and provided the spectators with some open mouthed moments such as Keith capsizing with 5 seconds to go on start 1 and the Keelings inspecting their bottom in race 3 which is rare, the Reids were right on trend with a swim near the water filter unit, the place to wet your burgee is mark 3 this season.

All the juniors are to be congratulated for their enthusiasm and determination but a special mention to Issac Shirley and crew Luca who were racing Issac’s newly acquired GP14.

Overnight Roger Woodhead looked handy for the big pot with Paul and Sam in Lasers, Andy in a bandit, sorry Supernova, and Andy and Gareth in the other pretty GP14 looking great with its new transparent tape.

Sunday proved to be more problematical for the new OD Ted with Heather who had a the same wind direction but with big holes and calms that only decided to increase to a measly force 2 at the end of race 6 when most people had given up and packed away or lost their trapeze harness.

Some words from Sunday

A hot sunny day with light winds N/NW forcast which is exactly how it turned out.

The first race started promptly at 1200 using the same course as Saturday ie W 3 8 2 Y line. Initially there was enough wind to keep the fleet together then a dying wind saw a breakaway of Osprey Fireball RS400 and Ff followed by the Lasers Supernovas and Solos and a few others.

The breakaway 4 were doing well with enough wind at the end of lap 2 so were sent round for a 3rd lap while the rest were finished and then the wind died!

It's just one of those things.

The Osprey eventually got itself sorted out and overtook the Fireball with the help of its larger sail area.

A good throughout approx 20 boats participated in race 1.

After lunch saw an extra few competitors turnout approx 24boats, the wind picked up slightly but not much and course was changed to W 3 1 line so slightly shorter. And a good decision to finish after 2 laps was made, again with a rapidly dying wind saw some tailenders taking over 1hr40mins to complete the course.

There was some discussion as to finish the regatta after 2 races as the wind did not look too promising but as some sailors wanted to get 4 races in to qualify for the series it was decided to get in a final short race, by pulling back W back towards the dam resulting in a W 3 Y X course, for 3 laps with the last of the wind staying pretty constant throughout for the 5 boats who turned out.

Many thanks to the team on Sunday, Heather keeping an eye on the clock and noting the times Jim and Andy on Safety, John and son on shore duty and Andy doubling up compiling the final places.

The presentation of the winners prizes were carried out by Alan and Andy with the overall winner of the Founders cup going to Roger Woodhead.

Results, top 5 Founders Cup 1/ Roger Woodhead, Supernova [Suzuki] 2 /Paul Keeling, ILCA7 3/ GP14, Steve Mcarthy and Gareth Thomas 4/Andy Mellor, Supernova [Yamaha] 5/Sam Bunn, ILCA 6

Special Prizes to Alistair and Sylvia Reed in their 400 , Seth Bunn in his Topper and Issac and Luca in the GP14

Results,Juniors on Saturday 1/Issac -Topper

2/Seth - Topper

3/Oscar -Optimist

4/Tyler -Topper

5/GP14 Issac and Luca

Thanks to the Saturday team of Pete Slater, Roy Jones,Andy and Jim Waterson, John Shirley Nick Green and James Rathbone and the Sunday team of Ted Kucaba, Heather Mathews, Brian Walker, Keith Walker, Jim and Andy Waterson - again.

Special mention and thanks to Andy Mcarthy for stocking the bar, Andy Waterson for his day long fight with Sailwave to publish the results on time and stocking the bar and Commodore Alan for his entertaining prize giving and stocking the bar. Pete Slater -[1st Osprey with Tom Chadfield ,Driving ]