Two busy weekends at Ripon Sailing Club
by Jennie Clark 5 Jul 2016 11:47 BST
25-26 June & 2-3 July 2016
Members at Ripon SC have had an action packed fortnight, with plenty of on the water activity and off the water socializing making the most of the summer weather (yes the sun has been seen!).
The last weekend in June saw the club hold its Family Weekend with a mix of on and off the water activities including dragon boat construction and racing, pond dipping, all manner of on the water races and 3 RYA courses thrown in for good measure! With membership rising dramatically after a particularly successful Push the Boat Out event it was great to see new members getting afloat and getting their first RYA certificates over the weekend. Whilst many families were enjoying activities at 'home', another group of families from the club were away at Pwllheli, taking part in the RS Tera North squad training weekend – Pwllheli will host the RS Tera Nationals at the end of August and this was a chance to get on the water and do some sea sailing.
Commodore's Weekend followed on from Family Weekend, with a packed programme of racing run by RO and Commodore Bernard Clark. The formula which he introduced when wife Jennie was Commodore was back in place with 10 races run over the weekend, run alternately for Juniors and Adults. The juniors were first to hit the water and a strong fleet of Teras, led for most races by Oliver Rayner chasing after the Europe sailed by Ellie Clark, with Coral Watt (Optimist) enjoying the average lap time racing. Clark and Rayner split the wins between them on Saturday but were chased hard by Esme Barraclough. In the adult fleet the races were pretty well anyone's as long as the capsizes were kept to a minimum with Richard Pryke (Solo) taking the first race on Saturday and James and Sue Ricketts (RS200) taking the second. The evening saw the club BBQ's pressed into use as members and guests ate, drank and made merry.
Sunday morning saw the adults start off the racing and Chris Wright claimed the first race of the day in conditions which Peter Smith described as 'lumpy'. The Ricketts took the second race which gave them the win overall but there was a lot of working out to be done before either of them were convinced they could miss race 3 and go and collect son Donald from his D of E expedition! The final race was again dominated by the bright yellow Solo of Richard Pryke but having to count a high score from transom flap failure meant he was to be held out of the prizes.
In the Junior fleet Hannah Elliott (Laser Radial) joined the racing and she and Ellie had a really good tussle all round the course in both Junior races. Ellie won both of the races pushed hard on handicap by Oliver in race 4 and by Beth Miller in race 5. The safety crews were kept busy all day, righting boats and pulling some out of the trees! Nigel Kettlewell (Supernova) wins the gardening prize and Claire Barraclough wins the prize for the loudest screams! The whoops of delight from the juniors whenever Royd Brayshay (Junior/Youth Secretary) fell in made everyone chuckle.
Overall Results:
Commodore's Trophy
1st James and Sue Ricketts, RS200
2nd Chris Wright, Streaker
3rd Tony Dallimore, Solo
Across the Generations (Parent/Child combination in Commodore's Trophy went to Tim and Emma Hampshire in their National 12). Emma also managed to compete in the Junior Trophy and finished 4th overall in that.
Commodore's Junior Trophy
1st Ellie Clark, Europe
2nd Oliver Rayner, RS Tera Sport
3rd Esme Barraclough, RS Tera Sport