Sandhopper Nationals at Thorpe Bay Yacht Club

by Tony Padbury 16 Sep 2010 16:23 BST

The 2010 Sandhopper National Championships opened with an unforgiving 25 mph South Westerly but 29 boats signed the declaration sheet and battle commenced. Amongst the contestants were two new craft, “Hairloss” or Aeolus, is this a passing reference to the man at the sharp end & the innovative & controversial Tripod. Race 1 saw previous champion Chris Clarke with Dan Henderson taking the lead with current champions Sand Star & Bluejacket keeping her company, this order prevailed throughout the two rounds giving Chris & Dan a well deserved first. This race went without incident but plenty was to follow in the next.

The wind increased slightly in Race 2 testing the crews and with Race Officer Geoff Appleton achieving a speedy turn-around Race 2 quickly got underway, this time Sand Star took an early lead with Martyn Eyre/Paul Spratt in Aeolus chasing her & Paul Clarke/Toby Speller in third place, yet again, with 2 lap races giving boats little time to impose themselves on the leaders, this turned out to be the finishing order. This race saw the three retirements, one of which was Phil Crawford whose spinnaker disappeared beneath the keel necessitating the cutting of his halyard & an early bath. The rigours of the economic downturn played a part in the following incident; Dave Johnson looking to fill his order book collided with April Fool, a nice touch David, passing your card to Ian Stobart as you parted company!

The third race saw the emergence of a pattern with Sand Star & the two new boats together with Bluejacket, a proven fast boat, establishing a dominating presence at the front of the fleet. Peter Thompson & Steve Hopper (159) led throughout followed by Bluejacket, Tripod & Aeolus with this being the finishing order.

Sunday brought lighter winds & some sun with the newer boats continuing to lead the fleet, which had increased to 32 Sandhoppers, the highest ever turnout for the Championships. Robin Foster-Taylor’s Tripod jumped into an enormous lead which they held to the finishing line. Chris Clarke in Sand Storm threatened to upset the dominance of the newer boats but dropped back to 4th, with Bluejacket 2nd & Sand Star 3rd.

Race 5 started with one eye on the clock as the previous race had endured two general recalls & the schedule had fallen somewhat adrift. Sand Star fought back from 4th at the end of the 1st round to take the gun & the Championship, Aeolus was 2nd & Martyn Binnendijk & Gordon Sanders in Squiffy posted a 3rd their best performance & Chris Clarke another 4th.

The weekend’s sailing was thoroughly enjoyed by all contestants & further enhanced by a well attended dinner on Saturday night with Maylandsea members joining us.

Overall Results:

Pos	Boat Name	Sail No	Helm & Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Pts
1	Sand Star	159	Peter Thompson & Steve Hopper	2	1	1	3	1	5
2	Bluejacket	154	Mark Dell & Nic Barnes	3	4	2	2	6	11
3	Aeolus	161	Martyn Eyre & Paul Spratt	4	2	4	5	2	12
4	Tripod	162	Robin Foster-Taylor & Charles Devenport	5	5	3	1	33	14
5		12		1	7	5	14	5	18
6		11		8	6	12	4	4	22
7		41		6	8	6	9	3	23
8		17		9	10	8	8	7	32
9		160		12	3	9	11	14	35
10		39		10	14	10	7	15	41
11		46		18	9	7	21	10	44
12		14		13	12	33	6	16	47
13		32		14	13	11	16	11	49
14		151		11	11	17	12	20	51
15		15		16	33	19	10	8	53
16		38		21	20	13	13	9	55
17		43		15	16	14	19	12	57
18		25		20	19	21	20	13	72
19		18		19	17	20	17	33	73
20		10		22	15	15	23	33	75
21		35		17	33	33	15	17	82
22		153		25	18	16	24	33	83
23		21		23	23	25	22	21	89
24		27		24	25	23	26	18	90
25		158		7	33	33	18	33	91
26		150		26	22	18	27	33	93
27		23		27	21	22	28	33	98
28		26		28	24	24	30	33	106
29		24		33	33	33	25	19	110
30		152		29	26	26	32	33	113
31		33		33	33	33	29	33	128
32		19		33	33	33	31	33	130