South West Challenge 2016

The three race South West Challenge series finished with the Wimbleball Beastie on Sunday, March 20th. The final race lived up to its name with a brisk northerly force 4 and cold conditions, but produced some excellent racing with what turned out to be essentially a windward-leeward course over the whole length of the lake. The early starters seemed to have the best of the conditions and never looked like being caught by the faster later starters. The race was convincingly won by Ian Horlock from Starcross sailing a Supernova, followed by Jeff Van den Borg sailing a K-1, from Lyme Regis, with Dave Stockton from Wimbleball sailing a laser 3rd.

The overall three race series was won by Jonathan Wilson from Wimbleball sailing a Laser Radial with 7/9/12 to count, Terry Curtis and Peter Greig sailing an Osprey 2nd with 23/2/13, and Ros Downs and David Downs from Tata also sailing an Osprey 3rd, with 24/12/25. The varying scores reflecting the very different conditions that applied to the three events with the Starcross Steamer being a very light wind affair until the last 15 minutes, and the Roadford rocket being decidedly brisk. Dave Stockton from Wimbleball had very good scores in all three events, but sailed the Roadford rocket in a laser radial rig, but the full rig in the other two. The junior event was won by Ben Hawkes helming an Osprey crewed by his father Simon. Unfortunately the series events clashed with a number of RYA training and indicator events and the junior entry was reduced compared to last year.

Very many thanks to the three race teams and organisers who put together the series. John Donovans from Starcross has written an event notice of race which will apply to the series next year.