Osprey Inland Championships Blithfield Sailing Club - 11th/12th October.

The Sun Sets over the 2025 Osprey Season at the Wonderful Blithfield SC.

Despite the wind predictions being light to nearly nothing, 15 teams rocked up at Blithfield for the final event of the season.

You might ask yourself why? The answer is, wind or no wind, Blithfield Sailing Club is without a doubt one of the greatest clubs to visit on the circuit. The volunteers, some of whom are non sailors or indeed even members, always put on the most outstanding event.

The highlight is the famous Blithfield Hog Roast on Saturday night with sunset, pudding & cheese Gromit! It is safe to say, for the Osprey fleet, this (and the beer) is a reason on its own to come to the event without sailing!  A huge thank you to the Commadore, Peter Slater and everyone who worked so hard to make us feel so welcome and feeding us so brilliantly – what a great team you are.

Needless to say, I am required to write about sailing, which I will do briefly but as always, I think it’s more fun and important to focus on the people who are what make this sport such fun.

We were all delighted to see Richard Hartley with Mark back in their boat and as always with no shortage of competitive determination, speed and tactical cunning around the course. He and Mark have been the lifeblood of the Osprey fleet for so many years and we all owe them a massive debt of gratitude for everything they have done for the class, it was great to see you Richard.

Basher Marshall was ever present this weekend kindly rushing around offering people butter for their rolls on Saturday night. Blithfield has always been a firm favorite for Basher, thankfully no streaking from him this time.

On the water it was great to see the newest wooden Osprey (1303) going fast, built during Covid lockdown by Ali Raynard. It isn’t quite finished – still needs some varnish on top of the epoxy. Ali said he wanted to do it after the event, just in case Basher “bashed” him. I did notice Ali unwisely had a luffing battle with him, which was brave.

As you can see from the results, Terry Curtis and Pete Grieg did their thing again as did Roger & Jamie Blake – great job guys. However, race three was a nice reminder that we must all keep pushing hard to get ahead. Kevin Francis and Johnny Osgood took the win in race three with a cleverly (apparently planned) slide up the right hand side of the beat to pass Terry and Roger who were busy match racing down the left – impressively Kevin and Ozzy managed to just stay ahead for another lap or two and finish with their nose in front.

It was great to welcome Tom Lonsdale and Dave Bourne from West Oxford SC, who borrowed the new Mark 6 class boat and quickly got to grips with it. The boat is always available for people wanting to give the new Osprey a go – we really hope you enjoyed the weekend and the boat - we look forward to seeing you again. 

Sunday was flat calm, which was disappointing but alternative entertainment was found, which was the car park tour of the varying array of camper vans.

Rob Shaw has long been the main aficionado of all things camper van, caravan, motorhomes and a broad range of other non related topics - he also tells me he now holds a license to sell alcohol for some reason!

We all had a good poke about his van, which seems to be 40cm longer than Ian and Jill Little’s van (clue’s in the name!). Rob was heard to say the extra 40cm makes all the difference – Jill didn’t agree and said she was very happy with her slightly shorter one. I guess, like many other things in life, it’s all about personal preference.

Bashers nest wasn’t part of the tour for some reason - he sat firmly in the front seat, window up, quite steamy inside, reading his broadsheet newspaper (not sure which one) to find out how much of his pension the chancellor will pinch in the budget at the end of next month. Advice on this is, buy another Osprey – she can’t tax that once you’ve spent the money on a boat! Take a leaf out of Willy Crighton’s book who tells me he has 4 Ospreys – what a fella!

Prize giving over, the competition continued with “who can pack up the quickest” race.

Needless to say, Terry is as quick off the water as he is on and pulled out of the car park first. I followed Roger & Jamie Blake up the drive and along the road – unlike on the water, I did get past him with a cunning short cut but then let him get ahead by stupidly doing two trips around the next roundabout – never good being in the lead and not knowing where the next mark is – I’ll get you one day Roger!!!

Great fun weekend all round – looking forward to seeing everyone next season and particularly at the Nationals at Mounts Bay from 3^rd -6^th September – get those boats on the water (Stevie George that means you!) and let’s make it a big one!!