Lightning368 Northern Championship at Ullswater Yacht Club

Wow! There's not many superlatives that remain to describe what a fantastic time the Lightning368 fleet had up in the North last weekend.

With Ullswater YC hosting the class' Northern Championships for this year, it was a long-haul for many but one that paid-off upon arrival at what must count as the most scenic and one of the friendliest clubs we've ever been to.

The usual Friday night social welcomed the 10 boats that were set for a superb weekend of sailing if the forecast held out and, after a hearty fill of fish & chips, washed down with vino and a "Happy Birthday" song to the lovely Emma (Yep, Lee really knows how to spoil the ladies huh?) it was all off to bed, under canvas and the Ullswater sky.

A gentle start on Saturday was quite welcome, with two races set for the day from 1pm. With the breeze starting to kick up nicely, the fleet took to the water as the 4th fleet, after the Keelboats, VX-Ones, Asymmetrics and Slow Handicap.

Robbie Claridge, in a new boat, simply headed for the horizon and proved uncatchable from the very start. The rest of us mere mortals made a pretend show of it, but only Simon was able to even stay within eyesight of Robbie as he took the first of his weekend wins.

Saturday's course was quite challenging for the Lightning - Force 4+ and a long dead run certainly keeps a helm on their toes in these small, nosey boats, however, there weren't too many disasters or death rolls really, just a lot of hard upwind splashing and some big effort being put in by everyone in the fleet.

So, whilst Robbie ripped away again in race two (Launching from the beach after a late lunch the cheeky monkey!) the rest of us really did lift our game to keep a pretty tight fight of things further down.

Simon, again, took second but a battle was starting to form for third between Ian Ransom and Caroline Key, the day ending in Ian's favour.

Aching limbs and massive grins rounded off day one as the UYC bar took a hit through the evening and Julie's massive quiz added brain ache to muscle ache.

Through the night the wind really started to switch on and some apprehension began to build over breakfast as we stared up the length of the lake to be faced with white-caps and rolling waves.

The 11am start for race three saw most of us head out anyway and, as sods law would dictate, the wind simply dropped. Our OD had kindly changed our course to save us our death-rolling blushes, but the wind that just five minutes before had offered wheelie-ing reaches now gave us a pleasant stroll around. Ooh, look, some kind of bird. Wave at everyone on the steamer. What? finished already?......and we almost didn't notice Robbie winning this one as well. He really was in fantastic form all weekend and was a joy to watch, if you were ever close enough!

Again, Simon finished second with the Ian / Caroline battle continuing this time with Caroline winning out as she and Ian were split by Matt.

Further back some terrific close racing was to be had as Julie, Jason and Lee duelled their way up the beat.

Race four saw an increase in the breeze and a return to whitecaps, bringing some superb planing conditions on today's course.

We just had an awesome race! Personally, I wasn't even looking to see where I was - and nor did I especially care because one look around and all I saw was the beauty of Ullswater, lovely big water and all the friends that I spend the year sailing with. This was one of those races where you think: "This is why I do this!" Hard work, big grins, big splashes, a few capsizes...... that's what it's all about isn't it?

Oh, Robbie won again with a magnificent race. Simon second, Ian third and a fantastic match race between Julie and Jason into the line.

Race five and the final one of the championship. The wind increased further for this one, into the realms of F5+ and became somewhat more gusty - it was, to be honest, Lightning breaking weather by now.

Still, we hadn't come this far to bottle it so six boats took to the water whilst the remainder of the fleet spectated on what was probably the most spectacular race of the weekend.

The gybe marks turned into beacons of 'proper' sailors - who will go for it? who will granny it? Perhaps it was adrenaline, perhaps it was the fact that we'd pretty much taken our brains out by now but those gybe marks were treated correctly and with much disdain as we all simply whipped around them.....some non-boaty squeaks were heard, but we all did it nonetheless.

With the Lightnings putting on a demonstration run down the reaches - and Robbie again out in a league of his own - this hugely demanding final race saw the first onset of fatigue, both human and boat.

With Lee snapping his gooseneck on one gybe and Jason rolling in with an impact that was heard somewhere in Worksop, it was pretty clear that we'd all been pushing hard during the last two days.

With Robbie taking first, Ian a superb second and Caroline third, it was great to see some of the normal 'not-so-front-of -the-fleet' picking up the gauntlet in this race to score good results as Bryan came in fourth and Jason fifth.

So, overall, Robbie took an emphatic victory with Simon second and Ian pipping Caroline to third.

An unbelievable weekend, though, where everything just came together beautifully to offer up an unparalleled weekend.

Many thanks to Julie for arranging this event - and we hope your new Aero offers you even a tenth of the fun that you've brought to the Lightning fleet.

To our amenable OD for really listening and setting us some great courses, to all on safety....in fact, just to everyone involved in both the Lightning fleet and Ullswater YC - we had an absolute ball! Thank you.

Our next outing is our Southern Champs down at Cookham Reach on the 18th of July.

Overall Results: