Roadford Rocket 2017 at Roadford Lake Sailing Club

Roadford Rocket 2017 © Richard Willows

Roadford Rocket 2017 © Richard Willows

Reports of imminent heavy weather heading south from storm Ewen over Ireland caused the organisers some anxiety, resulting in the start time been brought forward to 11:30am and the race duration shortened to 2 hours.

Quite a number of potential entries felt the long journey would not be worthwhile, but those that took the risk were rewarded with an excellent 2 hr race sailed in conditions that were on the limit for most.40 boats took to the start, with 30 finishers. The south-westerly wind gave up wind and downwind legs the whole length of the reservoir, just under 3 km each way!

Luca Guyon was first away in a laser 4.7 seven minutes ahead of the main start of the Solo of Richard Frost from Sutton Bingham, followed by the Lasers, Supernovas and then a big fleet of RS aeros. Last off were the Foiling Moths of Chris Tilbrook and Dan Ellis,69min later. For the first hour, conditions were moderately manageable, with the laser of Ben Flower, laser radial Chris Jones leading, followed by Peter Barton, Aero 7, and Iain Horlock in the Supernova, with the Solo hanging on, but with the two Fireballs from Portishead closing quickly. The second hour showed the winding increasing with some very tricky gusts particularly at the dam end of the reservoir. The laser 4.7 was overwhelmed crossing the line for the second time, and quite a number of others became casualties.

As the race progressed there was clearly a hectic battle at the front with the laser of Ben flower, the Aero of Peter Barton and the supernova of Ian Horlock swapping places, but by the end of lap 4 the Fireball of Chris and John Gill had moved into the lead, with their clubmates Colin and Derek Jarvis close behind. At this stage, the racing had become attritional, with some capsizing on the beat, others at the gybe marks and others finding the heat downwind too much, but most had some amazing speed sailing in the gusts on the long broad reach down the lake. Chris and John Gill showed exemplary control up wind and downwind, finding good spots to gybe and thoroughly deserved their win. Dan Ellis showed some excellent sailing in his foiling moth, and despite his misgivings over his sail juice PY, might well have been at the front had he not had a tangle with the outer distance mark!

Roadford Rocket 2017 - photo © Richard Willows

Half an hour after competitors came ashore, the weather closed in with nasty gusts and driving rain, which dampened down spirits a little, but there was a good supply of burgers and hot drinks from the mobile caterer. Many thanks are due to Exe Sails for again sponsoring the event, the centre staff at Roadford Lake Watersports centre for manning the rescue boats, and all the sailing club members who came and helped out on the day, either in reception, in the race box, or sitting in a rescue boat! Thanks also to RS sailing who provided three charter boats, which increased a number of Aeros to 10 on the water. This was the second event in the South West challenge series, the last event being the Wimbleball Beastie on March 19th.

Roadford Rocket 2017 - photo © Richard Willows

Overall Results:

More photos are available on the Roadford Lake Sailing Club Facebook group.

Richard Willows, Roadford Lake sailing club.