Wales win 30th RYA Eric Twiname Championships
by Imogen Stanley, RYA 9 May 2016 11:05 BST
7-8 May 2016
Down to the wire racing for some classes at the 30th RYA Eric Twiname Championships as Wales were crowned overall team Champions taking home the Shield Trophy.
Wales also picked up the Dinghy Trophy following an impressive performance in the Topper and RS Feva classes, with two sailors in the top five in both.
The South East Zone dominated the windsurfing classes, securing first and second in the 6.8m and 7.8m Techno.
Techno
The most consistent performance of the weekend goes to 5.8m Techno windsurfer Oscar Shaw, he won all seven of his races: "It feels good to win the event, but there were a few close races. My favourite race was probably the last one where it was really windy and I was pumping, my arms hurt a bit now."
Louis Walker (Buzz Active, SE) and Jennie Roberts (Hollingworth, N) finished second and third respectively in the 5.8m.
Younger brother Boris Shaw maintained his lead in the 4.5m Techno, with Charlie Bennett (Pugneys, N) just one point behind and William Russell (North Lincolnshire & Humberside Sailing, N) a further five points back to finish third.
Emily Jane-Eldred (Queen Mary, SE) won the 6.8m Techno, Samuel Williams also from the South East picked up the 7.8m Techno win.
Optimist
Close racing for all sailors in the Optimist class, and it came down to the wire; Joey Taylor's (Blackwater SC, E) second in the final race was enough to give him the overall win.
"It feels really good, I have really enjoyed the weekend," said Taylor.
"I had no idea about the results because at the end of the first day I was coming tenth so I just wanted to finish in the top ten overall. I was pretty happy with my only top three result in the competition when I crossed the finish line but I still didn't know."
Terry Hacker (Hunts Sailing Club, E), also from the East Zone finished second and Taylor was pleased to beat his Zone rival: "There has always been a lot of competition between us, at the start of the day he was beating me by three points but I came back and got ahead of him and managed to stay there."
The Optimist class only completed five races, after race one from yesterday was abandoned following a race committee error.
RS Feva
Winning the RS Feva class with a race to spare was Pierce Harris and Alfie Cogger (Windermere School, N).
Sian Talbot and Eloise Clapson-McBride (Leigh and Lowton, North) ended their event in second, disappointed not to win overall but pleased with their weekend, said Talbot: "It feels really great because we are quite light and this was quite windy for us and we have still managed to get some really good results.
Clapson-McBride added: "We are in a squad with a lot of the boys so it feels really good to beat lots of them. It's not a big squad in the North but there are lots of good sailors.
"Winning the race yesterday was really fun because we managed to beat all the boys and everyone else. This year the ET's were very fun, good wind and sunny. I liked the bouncy castles last night."
Ewan Luke and Zac Blomeley (Llandudno, Wales) finished third.
Topper
Harris Cartwright (Clyde, Scotland) and Isabel Wallwork (Redesmere, N) battled it out at the front of the Topper fleet all weekend, Cartwright took the final victory and Championship as he crossed the line in seventh: "It feels great to win, I have been to this event before but have never done that great, so it's really nice to win.
Discussing his fellow competitor Wallwork, Cartwright said: "I think she has had a pretty consistent series, she had some really good starts and clawed away back through the fleet.
"I have been training with the Scottish Topper Development team, we've got a fairly good squad and done reasonably well this weekend, so pretty proud of them," concluded Cartwright.
In third from Dale Yacht Club in Wales was Lowri Boorman.
In the Laser 4.7 selector event, Matt Beck's consistent scores put him at the top of the leader board, an improvement on the previous event where he finished seventh.
"My weekend was very good," commented Beck.
"I was just getting consistent results and finished at the top overall. I didn't get too many big scores and it was really my conditions, quite light. The racing was good, it was hard to get the courses right with all the shifts and race officer did a really good job."
Full results online here.
More about the Eric Twiname Trust at www.erictwinametrust.org
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