Brown Cup at Loch Earn Sailing Club
by Colin Tait 16 Jun 2011 07:51 BST
11-13 June 2011
The idea of widening sailing competition beyond club membership to local schools was the idea of Jock Brown, who was the Commodore of Loch Earn Sailing Club from 1959 to 1962. He put up the Brown Cup for annual competition. Thus the Club began hosting a June regatta, specifically for Scottish Schools.
This year was the 52nd year that LESC has run the event and the club celebrated in style with a record entry of 86 dinghies. Brooks Macdonald Asset Management kindly provided sponsorship for the event once again this year, supplying all the sailors with rash vests with the event logo. RYA Scotland & gforcesailing.com also helped support the event.
Saturday saw the event kick off with a weekend training camp providing coaching for 41 boats. Some of Scotland’s finest sailing coaches provided the training and with a ratio of about 1 coach for 5 sailors, the quality was very high. The training is geared towards providing an introduction to coaching for sailors who may not have taken part in the squad system. As well as the newcomers there is always a good ratio of current squad sailors getting some valued coaching prior to the event. It was great to see young sailors coming off the water and asking how they go about joining a squad.
Monday dawned with a forecast for lively conditions with strong westerly winds. A great day’s sailing ensued with the wind strength ranging from force 4 -5 with a brief lull prior to winds gusting force 6. The racing was tight throughout the fleets and the skills displayed by the sailors in the challenging conditions were fantastic to watch.
Overall Results:
Toppers
1st Jack Aitken (Hermitage High School)
2nd Dean Malcolm (Largs Academy)
3rd Calum Wilson (Lomond High School)
Handicap
1st 420 John Beardon & Fergus Barrie (Lockerbie Academy)
2nd 420 Rory & Neil Hunter (Arran High School)
3rd 420 Drew & Calum Airlie (Earlston High School)
Optimist
1st Alasdair Ireland (Dunoon Grammar School)
2nd Fiona Mackay (Dunnoon Grammar School)
3rd Ruaridh Mills (Kinlochleven High School)
Laser Radial
1st Ian McLauchlan (Gryffe High School)
2nd Rosalind Dunlop (Marr College)
3rd Calum Tait (Mackie High School)
Primary School
1st Izzy Milford Kirk Michael (Primary School)
Brown Cup School Champions 2011
1st Hermitage High School)
2nd Lomond High School)
3rd Mary Erskine)