Comet Open at Staunton Harold Sailing Club

Twenty-seven boats including 19 visitors from around the country, attended the final open meeting of the year on Saturday 19th October 2013. This event has become known as the third Championship of the Comet Class sailing on a superb lake, the venue for the2014 Class Association Championship in May. The Nationals in 2013 only had 6 more boats!

Many of the helms attending have won Open meetings and Championships in the past with the current National Champion Ian Stone attending.

The day was very mild with medium southerly winds most of the day and fortunately the rain held off until mid prize giving.

Race one had a long beat up to the first mark in open water. Jonathan Latham got away nicely and had a good lead. On the following long run Alan Bennett managed to catch him breaking away from Ian Stone and a couple of other boats, so it was nose to tail at the end of lap one.

Alan managed to pass Jonathan on the beat with Ian and Bob Dodds getting past by the end. Alan had a good one minute one leg lead at the finish. Eddie Pope had a 5th and Henry Jaggers his best result in 6th.

After lunch in race 2 with a new windward mark in use under a bank which made the approach very tricky. Ian and Eddie had a good first beat and managed to break away together from the rest of the fleet. Nigel Fern was up with the lead group at first before dropping back to his best result in 9th. Jonathan managed to get away from the pack and held a healthy position in third. Alan however broke from the pack, got by him on the final beat and was closing on the leaders as the race ended with Ian first across the line.

Race 3 was back to back with another windward mark with all starboard roundings and stronger winds. Ian managed to cross the fleet on port at the start but capsized on the first reach when a gust hit him and he lost 7 or 8 places. Michael Ettershank had a very good race leading for much of the time before being overtaken by a recovering Ian towards the end. Eddie managed a 3rd and Alan was able to discard his 6th place.

The prize giving for the event and also the Area and National Travellers' series followed the racing.

Overall Results: