Footy Richardson Trophy Team Racing at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
by Roger Stollery 24 Jun 2014 07:57 BST
22 June 2014
Five teams of Footys from across the country travelled to leafy Surrey to race Footys in teams of 3 at Frensham Pond Sailing Club. Whilst the event was organised by Guildford Model Yacht Club, the FPSC Model Yacht Group provided all the support for the event, which ran very smoothly.
The weather was beautiful, hot and sunny, but the wind was light and relatively steady in direction from the SSE in the morning, but became more southerly and variable from over the trees in the afternoon. The Footys sported their biggest rigs for most of the time, which provided some good performances even in the lightest breezes. Only two teams of 3 were on the water at once so it was a very relaxed event when you are not sailing and at times provided a spectacle of really exciting competitive racing. Competitors were able to use the racing rules, not just to avoid collisions, but positively to slow down the opposition in order to allow a teammate to catch up or pass. Everyone was aware of the winning combinations, which must be equal or less than 10 and on several occasions the results of the match hinged on the two boats lying in 5th and 6th places; you had to make sure that you finished 5th if you wanted to win the match!
20 races were sailed in 2 rounds of a schedule sailing each other team twice; each team sailed a total of 8 races. The names of the teams were made up to differentiate between the two teams from the Abington Park and a related name for members of different clubs forming a team. The Swords team got off to a good start by winning all of their matches in the first round, followed by Frenshpoole with 3 wins, AP Assetts with 2 wins and Frensham 1 win, with the less experienced AP Blowkes team unable to win a match. As the wind appeared to die at the end of this round and there were some repairs to be done, lunch was taken.
AP Assetts started Round 2 well to win from their fellow club members in AP Blowkes. The latter stood a good chance in the next match with Swords, because David Wilkinson's IAMBUS 2 Footy was unable to finish. However as the remaining Swords finished 1 and 2 they could not be beaten as this was a winning combination. Swords were in trouble again in the next match with AP Assetts, as the rigs of Peter Jackson's SLIM and Sid Sims' ICE became entangled. When they eventually drifted to the shore the other team members had finished with an equal score, so there was a 'match' race to the finish, which was won by Peter Jackson. In the penultimate match there was some real team racing, as Frenshpoole started badly against AP Blowkes, who were in a winning combination until Roger Stollery's ICE, slowed down their leading pair, Brian Hawkins and Nigel Rudd's ICE forcing them well off the rhum line. This allowed young Rory Burdock's SUPABUG to eat away at their lead and eventually pass Nigel to gain 3rd place and finish with the winning combination 1, 3, 6. However Freshpoole were not so lucky in the final match with AP Assetts, who finished with a 1,2,5 and the top score of 4 wins in Round 2.
This left the final results with a three-way tie between AP Assetts, Swords and Frenshpoole with 6 wins each. This was decided by a sail off with 3 more matches in which AP Assetts beat Swords, who beat Frenshpoole, who were also beaten by AP Assetts, who with a score of 2,3,4 won the match and the event.
The prizewinning teams thanked the organisers for another good event at Frensham Pond SC and thought that the late Angus Richardson in whose memory the trophy was given would have been pleased with the event, the sporting way it had been sailed and the input by the young dinghy sailors in the AP Assetts and Frenshpoole teams.
Overall Results:
1st Abingdon Park Assetts - 6 wins
Peter Jackson, SLIM
Peter Shepherd, Fat Boy SLIM
Andrew Sturt (Jnr), SLIM
2nd Swords - 6 wins
David Wilkinson, IAMBUS 2
Scott Wallis, RANGER
Sid Sims, ICE
3rd Frenshpoole - 6 wins
Martin Raishbrook, 1299 mod
Rory Burdock (Jnr), SUPABUG
Nick Royse/Roger Stollery, ICE
4th Frensham - 2 wins
Keith Parrott, ICE
Bryan Stichbury, RAZOR
Steve Hill, AWK
5th Abington Park Blowkes
Richard Sturt, RAZOR
Brian Hawkins, ICE
Nigel Rudd, ICE