Miracle Midland Area Championship at Leigh & Lowton Sailing Club

Eamon & Thomas Cuthbert win the Miracle Midland Area Championship © Kevan Bloor

The Miracle Midland Area Championships took place at Leigh & Lowton Sailing Club on the weekend 11th & 12th July. This 2 day event was a combined event with the club's annual Regatta. The fleet was greeted with warm weather and a stiff breeze making excellent sailing on what is recognised as the best sailing venue in the North West. There were 4 individual starts and the 8 Miracles joined the handicap fleet start.

Race 1 - Dave Butler and Ross Southwell (Welton) started at the port end and quickly established a lead chased by Cuthbert (L&L) and Raines (L&L). Leigh & Lowton professional race officers had set an excellent course testing the skills of the sailors to the limit where one mistake or wind shift could prove very costly. This proved the point with the Cuthbert boat breaking tacks with the Butler boat and took the winning gun. Once off the water it turned out that the Butler boat was over the start line therefore giving the Raines boat 2nd and Stapleton Jones (L&L) 3rd

Race 2 - Eamon unfortunately had the leave at this point to work and Dave Southwell decided to take his boat out. Again another excellent course was set by the race officers and the Southwell boat hotly in pursue of the Butler boat went for a flying start with the Raines boat just keeping up. However, at the final mark the Raines boat broke tacks to take the win with the Butler boat 2nd and Herbstritt (Shotwick) 3rd

Race 3 - Eamon managed to make it back just in time with a quick change over of crews kindly given by the rescue boats. This gave another exciting race between the 3 boats giving the Butler boat 1st followed by the Raines 2nd and Cuthbert 3rd leaving the first day's events with each boat having one victory each and day 2 everything to play for.

Race 4 - Day 2 the competitors where greeted again with warm weather and slightly stronger winds than the day before. The Cuthbert boat set off from the start line establishing a very commanding lead and recorded his 2nd victory. Butler 2nd and Raines 3rd.

Race 5 - The Raines boat set off from the start line establishing a nice lead followed by Butler and Cuthbert boats. However, due to a substantial wind shift the Raines boat found themselves on the wrong side of the course and gave the victory to the Butler boat Raines 2nd and Cuthbert 3rd

Race 6 - The Raines boat set off from the start line establishing a nice lead followed by Butler and Cuthbert boats. This remained the positions up and until the last 2 marks of the course when it came apparent that the Cuthbert boat had more downwind speed and was catching at a very commanding rate. A gybe was needed before the 2nd to last mark which the Raines did and Cuthbert noticed the wind shift and decided not to and took room at the mark. Reaching to the final mark a gust of wind came across catching the Cuthbert boat first giving them the chance to pull away and taking the final gun giving him the championship.

The Miracle fleet at the start of the event got together and decided to do all the 6 races with the Regatta fleet but only count 3 to enable any boats that turned up to race on the Sunday only to qualify.

Overall Results: