Phantom Midland Circuit at Chase Sailing Club
by Paul Lester 20 Apr 2009 12:33 BST
18 April 2009
Classic Chase conditions welcomed sailors to the first event on the new Phantom midland circuit.
Chase Sailing club held its first ever Phantom open meeting on Saturday. 23 Boats turned up to be greeted with a nice force 3-4 blowing from the north east. Race OOD John Froggott set a short beat across the pool followed by two long tight reaches down then back up the lake. This allowed the front runners including Andy Couch, Will Gulliver and Simon Hawkes to gain a significant lead after the first lap. Spectators were witness to a display of awesome downwind sailing by Andy Couch to allow him to win by a considerable distance. Behind him Simon and Will had there own fight to the finish with Will eventually second and Simon third. All the sailors came off the water for lunch and talk of making the second race less than an hour in length.
The wind increased just slightly after lunch and with blue skies and sunshine the second race got underway after a clean start. Predictably Andy Couch managed to pick the correct way up the first beat after tacking early onto port from the committee boat end to round first. Will Gulliver managed to find a path up the beat after starting at the pin end to round second. Again the leading boats managed to pull away down the reaches to allow Andy Couch to finish first with Will Gulliver second and Simon Hawkes third.
The last race became a decider for second and third place, Andy having already done enough to win decided not to sail. This left Will Gulliver to lead the race from start to finish with Simon Coward sailing a suburb race to finish second and Alex Morrison chasing hard to finish third.
A great day was had by all and a great start to the new Midlands Circuit. A big thank you must go out to RP Signs for sponsoring the Midland Circuit T Shirts and Rooster Sailing for supporting the series. Also thanks must go out all the boats who battled with road works and traffic to attend. See you all at Draycote for the second event.
Overall Results:
1st Andy Couch (Blithfield)
2nd Will Gulliver (Northampton)
3rd Simon Coward (Northampton)
4th Simon Hawkes (Wimbleball)
5th Alex Morrison (Port Dinorwic)
6th Paul Lester (Chase)
7th Mike Webb (Delph)
8th Philip Worth (Delph)
9th Jeremy Shinton (Bartley)
10th Pete Gough (Draycote)
11th Mark Weston (West Riding)
12th Richard Sims (Carsington)
13th Neil Boneham (Bartley)
14th Peter White (Blithfield)
15th Eddie Brookes (Elton)
16th Andy Costa (Bartley)
17th Adam Froggatt (Chase)
18th John Reay (Blithfield)
19th Pete Isherwood (Chase)
20th Mike Potter (Blithfield)
21st Steve Turner (Chase)
22nd Andy Griffin (Nottingham)
23rd Chris Allsopp (Chase)