GBR Optimists at Nieuwpoort Week 2015
by Alan Williams 14 Jul 2015 09:35 BST
3-8 July 2015
Nieuwpoort Week 2015 © Alan Williams
Eighteen GBR Optimist sailors along with 420s and Cadets headed across the Channel for the annual Nieuwpoort Week - or 'Flanders' as we prefer to call it.
The Worlds team, Flanders team and a group of other sailors made the journey past operation 'stack' ready to start racing in the 5 day event which runs Saturday to Wednesday.
Strong tide Saturday
The fleet of over 100 from 11+ countries was split into 2 flights and then split into gold and silver fleets later in the week.
Saturday saw a light westerly wind to start off against a monster current, which meant that it took 30 minutes for the fleet to get to the windward mark. There were 2 flights which saw Milly Boyle score 2, Julia Mellors 3, Cossie Lewis 5, and Oliver Hill 7.
Unfortunately a number of others including Will Hall, Matt Beck, Vita Heathcote and Archie Leckie opened their accounts with a black flag.
There was slightly more wind for race 2, which saw Oliver Hill score a bullet, Vita 2, Will Hall 3, Milly and Arthur Fry both 4, Julia 6, William Pank 6, and Matt Beck 7.
Barty Gray, Kai Wolgram, Henry Chandler and James Foster all had consistent days too with races around the top 10.
Electric Sunday
We towed out to the race course and then we were treated to a cold front thunderstorm with attendant claps of thunder, flashes of lightning and torrential rain so the race officer sent us all back in, and that was it for the day, the sailors went off to the local water park to chill out.
Mellow Monday
The wind was more south west to west at 8-12kts and race 3 saw Callum Davidson- Guild finish with a bullet only to find that he had been black flagged, so Archie Leckie who had been second took the bullet instead. Vita was 4, Julia 5, Will Hall 6, and Tom Dawson 8.
Race 4 saw the wind go further right and this time Julia dominated the race to take the bullet, followed by Will Hall 4, Matt Beck 5, Vita 7, Archie 8.
Big Tuesday
Tuesday saw the gold sliver fleet split and the worlds team, Flanders team and most others made it to the Gold fleet. Unfortunately some bad luck saw Drew Wright and Emily Hall in the Silver fleet.
Tuesday started off quite quiet with 8 kts coming from the SW. One race was run in this breeze and as soon as it started the wind increased to 15-20kts. Will Hall started what was to be a very good day for him with a solid 4 in race 5, followed by Julia with a 7. Vita had an uncharacteristically poor race after getting caught behind the sideways on committee boat before the start for a shocker. Matt Beck also had a troublesome swim while coming towards the finish in about 10 when a large trough between 2 waves made him lose his footing and he fell out!
It started to get quite big for race 6, with wind against and gusts upto 25kts, Will scored a 2, Vita 3, and Milly 5.
Race 7 was much the same, pretty windy Oliver Hill dominated the race all the way to the finish line where Milly who has had a nightmare on the start finally overtook Oliver for the bullet and then a tacking duel between Oliver and Will Hall saw Will narrowly beat Oliver on the line to take another 2, with Oliver 3. Arthur Fry was 6 and Vita 8.
In the silver fleet Drew and Emily dominated proceedings, Drew scoring 3 straight bullets and Emily a 7,5,2.
Too Windy Wednesday
We went into went into the last day with Will leading and Julia 4th and first girl, unfortunately even though we encouraged the race officer to race it appeared to be just too windy with low water occurring at the wrong time of day for recovering all the boats so that was it.
Prize giving was at 1200 noon.
Will Hall 1, Julia Mellors 4 and first girl, Milly Boyle 9, Arthur Fry 10, Vita Heathcote 11, Matt Beck 12. First Flanders team sailor was Archie Leckie in 20 followed by Tom Dawson in 26.
Thanks to IOCA and parents for all their help and support.