Blithfield Barrel Series at Blithfield Sailing Club - Day 4

Blithfield Barrel Series day 4 © Chris Martin

A cold day saw 37 boats turn out to sail in the last round of the Barrel series for 2012. Conditions were best described as champagne sailing on ice, a nice force 4-5 in sunshine but only about 4 degrees!

A strongly biased pin end start led to a general recall under black flag for the first race. The restart was also strongly pin biased as the wind swung further and this led to an interesting start for the boats around the pin end. The beat seemed to favour the left and the Merlin of Matt Biggs/ Ben Hollis and Andy "Taxi" Davis/ Tom "Stakllion" Pygall led the fleet around. The Biggs/Hollis combo forged a huge lead and won on the water comfortably as well as handicap. Taxi and Tom came second and Simon Potts/Charlotte Farmer came in third.

At half time the now customary pies were served up by Jayne Tatton and her gang in the galley.

The second race got underway off a pretty square line, thought he left side of the lake looked favoured initially. Again the pair of Merlins were around the front at the mark, joined by the Osprey of Gareth Caldwell/Jon Gibbons. It was Taxi's turn, in this raced crewed by Rob Kennaugh (Tom was suffering from stallion flu) to surge ahead and thought the Osprey won on the water they did not do enough to beat Taxi/Rob or Matt/Ben.

At the start of the day there were five teams who could take the Barrel. Unfortunately two of these were unable to attend, and the heavy conditions did not suit the lightweigjt combinations of Steve and Gill Leney or Chris Martin and Tom Dunne. so it ended up as a bit of a one horse race. Overall Matt Biggs/Ben Hollis took the barrel pushing Steve and Gill Leney into second and Chris Martin and Dan Morgan/Tom Dunne third all from Blithfield Sailing Club. First visitor was Mike Senior/Chris White from South Staffs SC in a GP14 who looked a possible winner but was unable to attend the last day.

The Barrel series seems to getting bigger and better every year. We have had over 100 entries this series, maybe helped by the lack of water at various clubs in the autumn and early winter. However this has made for excellent racing and we have been pleased to welcome visitors from as far affield as Poole and Hayling to the south and Hollingworth lake and Morcambe and Heysham to the north. Thanks to everyone for coming.

I'd also like to thank everyone who volunteered to help to run the events on the club side. With the turnouts we've been getting it has been necessery to make last minute calls for help and these have never gone unanswered. So thanks to all safety crews, oods, ladies (And Steve) in the galley, trolley dollies, parking marshalls and registration staff.

For next year we are intending to run the series over corresponding weekends and we look forward to seeing everyone again.

Overall Results: (top ten)

Full results are on the club website.