GBR Optimists at the Magic Marine Easter International in Holland
by Alan Williams 14 Apr 2015 14:33 BST
3-6 April 2015
A 'selfie stick' used at the Magic Marine Optimist Easter International in Holland © Tom Heyes
The 40 strong GBR Optimist team travelled to Holland for the 30th edition of the Magic Marine Sponsored Easter international on the Braassemermeer just south of Amsterdam. 235 boats from 14 countries competed during the 4 day championship.
The GBR team went out early to train and had to deal with extremely strong winds and very cold conditions. Oliver Hill, Arthur, Matt Beck, Ciaron Jones, Hattie Rogers, Alex Shonrocks and Adele Young all demonstrating some world class strong wind sailing and dominated training against international competition.
However, as is often the way with these things, when racing started the breeze dropped away! It was so cold that the tulips refused to appear, and the coaches were well wrapped up for most of the event.
Good Friday afternoon saw a weak southerly drifter with ridiculous shifts which coach Robbie Burns likened to snakes and ladders with more snakes than ladders and the fleet was subjected to a tortuous 2 races.
Saturday was a long day afloat: 8.5 hours and the fleet had 4 races, with Hattie Rogers and Jonny Thompson both beginning to build a good series, Hattie with a string of top 10s and Jonny putting together 4,4,7,2, early on in the series. Adele Young also did well early on with a string of early teens.
On Sunday we split into gold, silver and bronze, and as is so often the case the gold fleet racing was very difficult indeed, consistency being the order of the day. We had one difficult race in a north easterly and then a long delay until a sea breeze filled in from the west which gave typical short oscillations and a lot of gusts and lulls. The highlight of the day was Jamie Cook winning a race on his birthday in the Gold fleet and Alex winning in the Silver fleet.
Other notable results were Archie Leckie with 9 and 9, Drew Wright with a 2 and a 6, Haydn Sewell with a 3, and Arthur Fry who had a difficult first day scored a 5.
Despite a good forecast, Monday saw a very weak north easterly with one sketchy race race for each flight. Archie Leckie was 12th in the gold fleet, Alex won the silver fleet race and Lizzie Beardsall won the bronze fleet race.
It was a tough event but there were some very good individual races and a number of younger sailors were showing good form for the future.
Overall, Hattie Rogers 7th overall and 3rd girl, Archie Lechie built a good series to finish 23rd, and Haydn Sewell 26th in Gold fleet. Cosi Lewis was 4th in Silver fleet and Alex Shonrocks 6th and Matt Leary 8th. Drew Gibbons was 2nd in the bronze fleet and Toby Shonrock was 3rd.
Thanks for all the parents who helped out and brought RIBs to the event it was much appreciated.