Sailing Solutions Southern Area Topper Traveller at Poole Yacht Club

Sailing Solutions Southern Area Topper Traveller at Poole © Imogen Kemp

Sailing Solutions Southern Area Topper Traveller at Poole © Imogen Kemp

Sailing Solutions Southern Area Topper Traveller at Poole © Imogen Kemp

The final event in the Southern Area Topper Traveller took place at Poole Yacht Club on the 16th of November. A late final event of 2014 which was postponed after hurricane Bertha lashed out with 25-30 knot winds back in October when a difficult but wise decision was made to reschedule.

Entries numbers at 25 were a little lower than normal. The clash with the 32 sailors from JETS Squad and the dozen Hayling Squad members having a training session had a bearing - there just aren't enough weekends to go around sometimes.

With the forecast at an enticing 12-14 knots of SE breeze, the journey to Poole was looking promising if a little damp. The PRO was keen to get things off on time as he had a plan of 6 quick fire races. Quite in contrast to the Bertha winds, the day dished up a very light 4-6 knots. This opened the way for the light wind experts, Hugo Burrows stole the lead in the first race and kept Elliot Kuzyk at bay while Vicky Cowan kept the boys in close check. The race officer did a fine job in firing off the starts and all sailors apart from one or two individual recalls played ball. Elliot pulled out all his light airs skills and recorded 4 bullets and a 4th to win the event convincingly, Hugo sailed consistently to stay in the second slot with Vicky keeping 3rd. Mille Aldridge in race 4 did extremely well to take the bullet from the main contenders.

Poole Yacht Club has hosted the final Southern Topper event for the last few years under the superb organising skills of Juliette and Rob Kemp. It's well known to the sailors that Poole puts on a brilliant display of prizes for the race and series winners, but also spot prizes, so once racing had finished and the wind dropped off even more there was a noticeable desire to get back to the shore and into the club house asap, even including a little illegal propulsion! A big thanks to Sailing Solutions, Kemp Sails, English Braids, Harken, Oakley and Magic Marine there were a lot of happy sailors.

On behalf of all the sailors attending the Southern Regions 8 event series, a really big thanks to the clubs in hosting the Topper Travellers; Burghfield, Spinnaker, Bosham, Emsworth, Chichester, Hill Head, Oxford and Poole. All the sailors enjoy the clubs and from the sum up of the club officials its always a pleasure to see a bright bunch of young and sometimes older sailors enjoying their sailing.

Looking to 2015, the Southern Region has an exciting year ahead being sponsored by Sailing Solutions. Juliette is just confirming the last couple of fixtures and once these have been done a calendar of events will be available. With a healthy number of sailors taking part in winter training and with Southern sailors in the National, Intermediate and Zone Squads, and JETS and Hayling squads having good numbers of sailors, the start lines next year will need to be a good length. If you haven't been able to get into any of these squads but would like some pre-race coaching then the open to all Coaching on the day before the travellers could be a great way for a range of ability sailors to get some vital tips from some very experienced coaches. These coaching sessions before the race day are long established and have proved helpful and popular. All these details can be found on the ITCA site under the Southern Region section very soon, see www.gbrtopper.co.uk/page.php?21

Everyone is looking forward to visiting all the great clubs in 2015 with a lot of very fired up Toppers sailors.