Contender Open at Weston Sailing Club

Contenders at Weston © Alan Davis

Contenders at Weston © Alan Davis

Contenders at Weston © Alan Davis

There are winners and there are losers and there are discards. And all three conditions were to be bestowed upon Nick Noble (Nob).

Originally, due to high winds between 30 and 45 knots, Saturday sailing was cancelled, but then reinstated. For whatever reasons not all of the fleet could be assembled on Saturday. For those that were there the race officer posed the question, which translated to diehard contender sailors as are you people of; courage, honour and skill, or are you shrinking violets? Goaded by Nob, three psychologically unstable people raised their arms. So be it" said the race officer and out went Stuart Jones, Carl Tagoe (Tag) and Nob into the abyss. Not forgetting Mark Watts who just didn't make the start due to some gear issues. Whilst in hyper drive mode Tag and Stuart executed perfect jibes. Nob was not so bold and grannied around. This set the scene for the rest of the race with Tag leading and Stuart pressing hard and Nob bringing up the numbers. Tag won the race, without capsizing and reportedly looking very comfortable sailing on the edge. The remaining races for the day were abandoned due to a little bit of inclement weather.

The agitator received criticism for his lacklustre heavy weather performance, but Nob was having none of it and on Sunday he soon made amends. The days racing was in force four which suited Nob and Simon Muscle. On the water they were the two fastest boats on the day.

The second race of the series started in stable wind and Simon and Nob battled for first place. Simon won this one followed by Nob and Gary Langdown. Things got more interesting in the third race as the force four wind waxed and waned and its direction became more erratic. The conditions deteriorated to the point, it was hard for the race officer to set a start line to accommodate the changing circumstances. The third race settled down to a battle between Simon muscle and Nob. Edward Presley turned on the light bulb to shine for a third place. With stability problems Tag's light bulb was definitely switched off for race two and three. Race four, and Simon rocked and rolled himself into oblivion down the first reach opening up the path for Nob to have a commanding position within the race, until that is he missed a shift. Shifty Stuart and Tag managed to work themselves up the fleet. Line honours went to Stuart, Nob and Tag for positions one, two and three respectively.

And then there were the discards. Originally there should have been seven races and two discards. The two discards came in on the fourth race i.e. only half the races would now count. Or to put it another way bullets take priority over consistency and Nob, with the exception of one race, had always come in second place. So Nob, dropped like a stone to fourth place. Under the one discards system he would have won. Tag shifted gear to third place and Stuart to second. Simon under the one discards system would have been second but moved to first place. However whichever discards system was used Team NobTag would still retain the elusive fourth place.

For those readers who have made it this far, and read many write-ups from Team NobTag you may be wondering why we dominate the fourth position. Well we are under team orders from our marketing department to ensure that at least one of us occupies it. However if there are any other individuals, such as Stuart Jones, Graham Scott, Simon Muscle etc. who wants to occupy this strongly contested position please contact our Talent De-escalator Department ASAP.

As usual Weston Sailing Club put on a superb venue in very difficult conditions, hats off to you.

Overall Results: