Sutton Bingham Banbury Chaser / Icicle Open
by Kev Francis 19 Feb 2014 13:39 GMT
16 February 2014
Startline action during the Sutton Bingham Banbury Chaser © SBSC
In view of the recent weather to hit the UK and in particular Somerset, the gods blessed last Sunday with a fine bright day, a nice breeze and a turnout of 25 dinghies from Lyme Regis, Castle Cove and the host club Sutton Bingham. The club's spring warm up was being sailed in combination with the 3 way club challenge - Banbury Chaser, and was contested over 3 races with only slight course changes to make best use of wind direction and to further complicate things for boats with spinnakers and for us trapeze as well.
Your author had persuaded crew Phil that the Osprey should make an appearance as a warm up to the forthcoming Starcross Steamer, his response being that he couldn't wait to show off his new found fitness after many long hours of Pilates and spinning at home (avoiding the rain and 50+ knots that has become commonplace recently).
Atlast various items deemed necessary were gathered from far flung corners of the garage and we arrived at the place of our Sailing birth to be greeted with a scene that Donald Campbell would have been proud of - as not a breath of wind was to be seen or felt.
Undeterred we made the boat ready for action and were soon joined by many other visitors including Sam Pascoe and Alex Adams with Sams nice/annoying new Merlin and Nick Grace who had borrowed a Phantom from the varied collection of Nick Orman. Some old friends arrived from Lyme Regis and so a good mix of craft were assembled ready for battle. Now those of you that have ever sailed at Sutton Bingham will know that it is rather fluky for wind and also not the biggest piece of water when compared to say...the Somerset levels. So those factors combined with the fact that we were sailing what one onlooker called 'The Ark Royal' meant that Phil would indeed have to be tenacious and cat like to keep us going, which luckily he achieved without incident and without any breakages to boot.
The racing proved to be great fun and as always a little frustrating. By this I mean that we spent a lot of time staring at the Merlin Rocket with Sam and Alex occasionally looking back to check that we had not ditched the wood burner (Osprey standard gear) over the side to gain an advantage. Pete Barnstable had a solid day in his Blaze getting the better of his rival Chris Bottomley with Pete's normal Osprey crew, Richard Cumberbatch fighting it out in the Phantom.
Also in a Phantom for the first time, Nick Grace was enjoying his day in a boat that you could tack as often as you fancied without being an Olympic Gymnast, but that leaning out does require core strength and stamina whist still smiling, hence Phil has offered some personal training & application of his performance enhancing gel to Nick if he should carry on in this class. My advice Nick is to stick to the Musto Skiff & Contender.
By the end of each race the order had been established with Sam/Alex ahead of us by a few boat lengths. Even with the application and searing heat of the performance enhancing gel there was no way past for us over any length of time though we did enjoy scaring the fishermen along the banks.
The results came in with Sam & Alex winning the open with 3 bullets and receiving the bottle of wine for Mrs Pascoe and chocolates for everyone else (bad luck Alex). Howard Frear from Sutton Bingham came 2nd in his Streaker with Osprey 1296 (us) in 3rd. 4th place went to Jerry Rook and Lily Helston in an Albacore with the rest of CCSC team Pete in 13th & Nick 14th.
The Banbury Chaser historically has only been contested between Sutton Bingham and Lyme Regis, however the newly invited CCSC slipped infront of Lyme for 2nd place, with hosts winning leg 1. Later in the season return events will form legs 2 and 3 at Castle Cove and Lyme for club honours.
As we departed the club I noticed that Pete Barnstable had placed an order with Phil for some extra strength performance enhancing gel... brave man that one.
Overall Results:
1st Sutton Bingham SC - 2nd, 5th, 7th, 14pts
2nd Castle Cove SC - 1st, 3rd, 13th, 17pts
3rd Lyme Regis SC - 4th, 6th, 10th, 20pts