Shustoke Sailing Club Winter Series
by Zara Turtle 29 Mar 2017 11:38 BST
25-26 March 2017
Shustoke Sailing Club Winter Series © Zara Turtle
Last weekend saw the end of the winter series at Shustoke Sailing Club. With the sun out and a superb easterly breeze providing windy, but steady conditions – what more could we ask for?
Saturday Winter Series:
The top ten positions in the Saturday Winter Series were dominated by single handed boats, although there were 4 different classes represented - Laser, Optimist, Phantom and Solo. Overwhelmingly, it was the Solos which took the top 3 spots. Overall winner was Stuart Hydon, followed by Cole Briscoe and Richard Charles. Top lady helm was Ann Biglin (Solo) who managed a 5th, with Jane Scott Davies (Solo) coming in 8th just ahead of Lucinda Thornton (Laser) in 10th.
Sunday Winter Series
It was all to play for on Sunday as the last race turned out to be pivotal in deciding the eventual winner of the series!
Richard Charles had been the event series leader for a number of weeks having established some cracking early results by beating fellow Solo sailor Cole Briscoe and holding at bay Stuart Hydon and Jane Scott-Davies in the Lark. In the meantime outside the top 3, Peter Smith sailing a Phantom was battling with single-handed Tony Fulford who was demonstrating considerable speed in his Comet Trio.
At the beginning of February the tables were starting to turn with both the Stuart/Jane team and Cole delivering better results over Richard. Going into the final race, Richard was leading having already achieved 6 wins, the minimum possible score. In second place was Stuart with 5 wins - needing a win in the final race to give him the title on count back!
With the final race underway Stuart led the Solo fleet from the start, with the biggest difficulty being passing all of the Mirrors, particularly Len Kniverton who was fired up following his winter hibernation. Eventually Stuart passed the Mirrors to take the win, for both that race and the overall series, leaving Richard in second place, followed by Cole in third.
Congratulations to everyone for taking part and a big well done to Stuart, Richard and Cole who were placed in the top three of both the Saturday and Sunday series! With the weather now turning towards Spring the rest of us can hope that maybe they'll have too much work to do at home in the garden to make it down for both days at the weekend next series!