Topper Open at Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club

Oliver Jaffe during the Island Barn Topper Open © Jim Champ

Close action during the Island Barn Topper Open © Jim Champ

So, yes, everyone got to the reservoir and it had a pretty mirror finish. The reservoir surface that is. The clubhouse mostly had a finish in undercoat at best, with an added layer of building dust.

Sorry it was all so disorganised, but believe me it was an awful lot worse the night before. We had a nice project plan for the clubhouse upgrade that carefully missed all the major events. Hollow laugh offstage. What with one thing and another the work has hit most of the major events. Messily. Literally.

Goodness knows how the folks doing the catering were managing to produce bacon sandwiches out of the improvised kitchen facilities, but that was about the best thing visible before 10am. Well, what do you do? At a Topper event you can hardly hoist the AP and open the bar and there looked to be a tendency for air molecules to start at one side of the reservoir and wander in the vague direction of another side, so, when it became apparent little more was going to happen out were sent the competitors.

Race 1 was a distinctly slow motion affair, I think there was only one lap, which in turn means the lap chart isn't much help to the scribe here. Annabel Sumaray from Papercourt won the race from Fin Swanton of Felpham, with Coco Barret (Desborough) third, and your reporter, using unreportable language, jumped in his van and went home for more IT: that was another casualty of the building works.*

When the scribe reappeared race two was in "full" swing. There may have been some wind for this one at times, because the lap chart that shows two whole laps. Gosh. The drama. Daniel Thompson from QM had been leading at the end of lap one from Morgan Archer, but they swapped places on lap two. Fin Swanton took 3rd and Coco 4th.

Treading carefully - Josie Meredith during the Island Barn Topper Open - photo © Jim Champ

Lunch. Good lunch it was too, choice of hot food dishes and all. Talk about something from nothing. Good work team.

Race 4 was a strange one. Two laps again, and the first lap was an odd affair in which the first 5 or so got strung out over an enormous (well over half a lap) distance, and the rest of the fleet was compressed into a horrendously tight pack with any number of boats overlapped at every mark rounding. Morgan Archer won this one as well. I half overheard a story yesterday about a race winner drifting into the finish mark after the wind did something very peculiar, circling round, taking the penalty turn, recrossing, and still having ample time to win the race. Would that have been this race? Seems feasible. Ishbel Zuumad took 2nd, Coco 3rd, Daniel Thompson 4th.

Last race. Well, the beat was vaguely square for at least the first half, which was about as good as could be managed. The fleet tended to go well to the left. It looked as if there would be considerable rules action if much of the fleet was going to hit the layline and come into the mark on port... As they drifted on Leila Moore, who had taken a more central course, was looking very good, but Morgan had bailed out from the left earlier than most and was coming across on port. Now, was Leila on the lay line? Morgan obviously thought so, and put in an exquisitely timed slow motion lee bow tack which gave him the lead, the race and the event. And yes, they made it round the mark. Action amongst the next group was dramatic in a kind of choreographed slow motion type of manner, and whilst some of the starboard tackers were perhaps kind to the port folk, no-one hit the mark, and I didn't see any great rules breaches. All in all there was plenty of (ultra slow motion) boat to boat racing, there was a reasonable amount of vocal comment if one or two looked like stretching the propulsion rules a bit, but the fleet discipline was such that the competitors sailed rather more fairly than certain adult fleets. No names, no hyphens... Anyway Ishbel came through for 2nd, with Leila 3rd and Fin 4th.

Morgan Archers event winning lee-bow tack in race 4 during the Island Barn Topper Open - photo © Jim Champ

So Morgan won from Fin, Ishbel, Daniel, Coco (first U13) and Leila.

Maxi Tustain, Maisie Bristow and Cormac (morning playing Rugby) O'Brian were the top three from a depleted local turnout.

The club apologises for the weather, and the state of the clubhouse.

What with the lack of wind and the shifts you would have thought it was pretty much a lottery, but the same folks managed to be at the front of the fleet most of the time, so talent will out I guess, and the prize winners deserve congratulations for mastering conditions which would have sent this sailor heading grumpily for the beach...

Overall Results:

* IT: It was only the next day that your reporter realised that the laptop he ended up using to display the results on the day was in fact older than all the competitors. It's a brave veteran that one.