Flying Fifteen Open Meeting at Datchet Water Sailing Club
by Richard Jones 14 Oct 2012 21:33 BST
13-14 October 2012
Sixteen teams, including five visitors, entered for the Datchet Flying Fifteen Open Meeting this weekend. Conditions were very challenging, but the best people make their own luck! Ian Linder and Matt Firth of Datchet took the event with a 1,1,3 scoreline.
PRO, John Hanson, laid the Saturday courses at the far end of the reservoir. Conditions were light, until a colossal hail squall ripped through the fleet in the second race with great slabs of breeze sweeping across the course. The Club managed to get three races in, and Linder/Firth did not have it all their own way by any means. They were pushed hard all the way by Hamish Mackay and Andrew Lawson from Royal Thames, winners of the final race and only two points adrift of the lead. Richard Lovering and Matthew Alvarado from Hayling finished the day in third.
Like most of the country, Sunday morning started in a thick mist with very little breeze and very challenging visibility. Eighteen tea drinking teams waited at the slipway to no avail for the wind to come by a realistic time. After a one hour postponement, it was agreed to cancel racing and results from the first day stood.
Results:
1st GBR3851, Ian Linder/Matt Firth, DWSC, 5pts
2nd GBR3788, Hamish Mackay/Andrew Lawson, Royal Thames, 7pts
3rd GBR3955, Richard Lovering/Matthew Alvarado, HISC, 10pts
4th GBR3948, Ed Chapman/Chris McLaughlin, DWSC, 12pts
5th GBR3860, Mark Firth/Toby Sparkes, DWSC, 13pts