ASAP Vortex Nationals at Rutland Sailing Club

Prizewinners at the ASAP Vortex nationals © Vortex class

The Vortex fleet held its first national championship at Rutland sailing club in the year 2000. Since then the class has gone through some major changes introducing the Asymmetric kite in 2004. Rutland hosted this year’s championship and did their now customary professional job.

Saturday dawned with very little wind. The race officer tried to get a race on the board, but the wind dropped to nothing and had to abandon, this was fortunate for some of the event favourites who found themselves at the wrong end of the fleet. Special mention must go to Terry pressdee and Andrew Straton who may not have expected to be leading the fleet round and were obviously disappointed when the abandon guns went off.

The fleet retired to the local golf course to let some steam off, the tee offs were like a ploughed field after we had used them, but we did replace our divots!

Sunday always looked more promising, and so it proved.

The first race started in around 8 knots, the wind was very shifty and there were major place changes all over the course with at least five different leaders. At the end Ian Escritt took the bullet followed by Phil Whitehead and a charging John Turley. Last years Champion Keith Escritt struggled to 7th.

Race two was similar but Keith wasn’t going to let his brother have it all his own way and pulled out a massive lead, Ian Was second Mike Gower third and Ben Rayner fourth.

Race three, you guessed it same conditions but different result, this time Ian pulled away for a big win but crucially Keith held his nerve to get second and keep the championship alive. Jonathan Lister took third and Terry Pressdee fourth.

The last race was now going to decide who would be national champion, Ian decided not to try to pin Keith “Olympic style”, and soon after the start was regretting this decision, Keith won the start, but as we had seen in all the previous races there were plenty of opportunities to gain around the course, Ian eventually overhauled Keith and then covered. Whilst all this was going on Phil, Neil Spink, and Mike Gower and to be honest most of the fleet were swapping places and having a great race. One person who stood out was James Mitchell from Poole who despite not having the benefit of 15.5 square metres of Kite was often seen near the front of the fleet.

This left Ian as Champion and Keith second. Phil pipped Mike on discard and Neil took Jonathan by one point.

ASAP logistics again provided the sponsorship which was much appreciated by everyone in the fleet.

Overall Results:

Asymmetric fleet
1st Ian Escritt (Yorkshire Dales SC)
2nd Keith Escritt (Yorkshire Dales SC)
3rd Phil Whitehead (Yorkshire Dales SC)
4th Mike Gower (Wilsoian SC)
5th Neil Spink (Yorkshire Dales SC)
6th Jonathan Lister (Yorkshire Dales SC)

Standard Fleet
1st James Mitchell (Poole YC)
2nd Simon Middleston (Wilsonian)