Spitfire Inland Championship at the Grafham Cat Open
by Eliza Cox 30 Oct 2014 07:43 GMT
25-26 October 2014
Spitfires at the Grafham Cat Open © Ian Philpott
This weekend was an excellent opportunity for both the newer teams to get some race experience and for the older teams to let all the training from Paul and Ollie in last weekend's heavy wind session to show through in this weekend's tricky conditions.
After the pictures had permeated through the group of the previous week's carnage most people decided to arrive on the early side to survey the damage done, thankfully nothing was too badly damaged and we breathed a sigh of relief to find all boats sailable for the event, and so proceeded the fun and games.
With the boats tweaked to within an inch of their tuning ability, and everyone having happily shared parts, tools and (lots of) tape from all the teams, the Spitfires were good to go.
With the wind building we attended a brief briefing (sticking true to its name) followed by the thankfully seamless launching of the boats.
The racing the first day was a mixed bag for everyone, with some vicious gusting (15-30 knots), several teams spent a large proportion of their time on their sides, naming no names, you know who you are! Three races later and the day was over everyone was sent in and the results compiled. Supper at the club began at 5:30 and so most teams took the opportunity to work on their boats some more, with Paul's help shrouds were swapped, spinnakers inspected and tuning tweaked (yet again). Dinner was very good and all the sailors left the club ready for another days hard racing.
The next morning the teams arrived for the racing, the first race was scheduled for a 10:45 start. Unfortunately the launching was not so smooth this morning, with one team not making the first start and Ollie attempting to single hand the class boat, a brave move, but he was capsized and marooned on the lake shore rather than making the start. The conditions, described by Paul were 'dogs off chains' style conditions, with some sailors saying the gusts were above 30 knots, the racing became all about survival, the trick to winning being to stay upright! Unfortunately, by the second race the amount of boats upright was dwarfed by the amount of boats on their sides or even completely inverted and so the race finished early and the racers were sent in after completing two of the three planned races for that day.
Boats were packed up with haste and all the sailors were changed and showered to listen to an informative debrief from Paul, and then, with the final results posted all the sailors attended the prize giving. Congratulations to Tony Stokes and William Smith on 1st place, Eddie Bridlie and James King on 2nd place and Sam Rowell and Dan Smith on 3rd.
Our thanks must be given to everyone at Grafham Water Sailing Club for hosting such a successful event, with special thanks to Peter Saxton for his much appreciated time as race officer, and of course to Paul Wakelin for his tireless efforts and enthusiasm in coaching us.