Flying Fifteen Open at Bewl Valley Sailing Club

The annual Bewl Valley Flying Fifteen Open meeting was held on the weekend of 23rd/24th March at Bewl Valley Sailing Club near Lamberhurst, Kent.

The weather forecast at the beginning of the previous week seemed reasonably promising, even for March, and hopes were high for a fifteen plus turnout. However, as the week progressed and snow set in around the UK, hopes of attracting visitors to the widely publicised event receded rapidly.

Eventually, two visiting crews braved the weather, Ian Cadwallader and Dave Sweet from Chew Valley and Richard Lovering and Matt Alvarado from Hayling Island. They were joined by Robert Hogben and Glyn Morgan, with a Bewl based boat, to provide a trio of elite crews.

The fleet was completed by six regular Bewl based boats, five from the Main Fleet and a lone Classic Fleet sailor.

The ENE winds, Force 3 to 4 with only modest gusts, were significantly less demanding than forecast. However, the increasing wind chill factor over the two days resulted in the daunting prospect of an equivalent temperature of -6 degrees C. by the end of the series. Five races were run with one discard and the course consisted of an upwind and a downwind leg. Predictably, each race developed the same pattern, as a race of two halves. The elite trio and the Bewl based boats, in their separate groups, were each involved in much close racing and the final order was not determined until the series was completed.

As always at Bewl, correctly anticipating the vagaries of the wind on the approaches to the dam wall seemed to be a major component in the secret of success.

The winner overall was the Hayling Island boat (Lovering and Alvarado), followed by Chew Valley (Cadwallader and Sweet) and third the Bewl Valley boat of Hogben and Morgan.

Afterwards there were tales of impressive clumps of frost and ice crystals forming on the rigging and boat superstructures, even within the space of individual races. The weekend was judged as providing excellent sailing despite the reduced fleet size and the demands made by the high wind chill factor.

Overall Results: