NW Senior Travellers at Bolton Sailing Club

NW Senior Travellers at Bolton © Brian Taylor

The third round of the 2015 NW Senior Traveller Series took place at Bolton S C on Tuesday the 26th June. The first two events had reduced entries because of forecasts of very strong winds, this time the forecast was for very light winds and no doubt also put a few travellers off. Nevertheless 15 boats sailed by the over 50s took to the water for a day of friendly rivalry, sunshine and fickle winds.

Race 1 had a biased pin end start line which went even more biased in the last fifteen seconds. Dave Turtle in his Streaker decided on a pin end port start, quite prepared to take a few transoms, but as the starboard boats failed to make the pin with the big shift seconds before the start, he was able to execute the classic port end flyer and cross the fleet.

He never looked back and claimed the race easily on handicap. In the chasing pack Darren Nield and Dave Woodhead had a race long tacking duel in their Solos, with Darren successfully using every blocking move he could think of. Carol and John Haines in their Scorpion led the faster boats, helped to a certain extent by other faster boats sailing off on the wrong course. The Scorpion split the Solos on corrected time. In fifth place was the local man Mark Platt in a Laser.

Race 2 provided even shiftier winds with variable patches of pressure and calms. Dave Woodhead's Solo and the Merlin of Gerry Cahill and Ian Beebe broke away and got into a different wind system than the rest of the fleet and slowly pulled out a big lead. The prize for under achievement on the day however goes to the Merlin. In the lead on the water, within smelling distance of the finish line, they were hit by the strongest gust of the day which was also a massive header, as a result they fell in to windward!

Merlin's go very slowly full of water in light winds! There was much place changing going in the following group as the wind favoured one group then the other. Dave Turtle emerged to take second place with the Darren Nield claiming third. In 4th place was the Graduate of Dave Ivins and Graham Courtney and 5th another Solo sailed by Tony Sampson.

In Race 3 the OD changed the course to try to keep the boats in the wind. It was a question of heads out of the boat all the time to take advantage of the sporadic puffs of wind and the changes in direction. Dave Woodhead again broke free to take the race and the meeting win. The usual suspects were there again with Darren talking 2nd, Dave Turtle 4th and Carol and Jon 5th. These consistent boats were split this time by the Graduate of David and Liz Wilson in 3rd place.

On a difficult day Tony Critchley (OD) and his team did well to get 3 very enjoyable races completed.

The prize for the first over 70 sailor went to Jon Haines. Carol also qualified but Jon as crew crossed the finishing line first and was deemed the winner. No doubt he shared his bottle of wine prize.

For full results see RYA North West website.

Overall Results: