Wayfarer Western Area Championship at West Oxfordshire Sailing Club

by Tim Townsend 27 Apr 2017 08:06 BST 22-23 April 2017

An encouraging fleet of 21 Wayfarers from 10 clubs met up at West Oxfordshire Sailing Club on 22nd and 23rd April for the UKWA Western Area Championships 2017 and the first event of the Craftinsure National Circuit and Travellers Series. There were new faces on the circuit as well as old faces with new boats.

On Saturday the wind was from the North and a fitful 5-10 knots. The race officer used the whole of the lake for three races over a figure of 8 course. With the wind oscillating wildly 25 degrees either side of the mean, rarely were positions held comfortably for a whole race if either a shift or a stream of breeze was missed. For example, Tim Townsend and Catherine Gore found the conditions incomprehensible in the first race of the day, when they plummeted inexorably from a comfortable second place halfway through the race to finish thirteenth at the end. Michael McNamara and Simon Townsend were the only truly consistent team on the day registering 1, 2, 1 to lead overnight from Len Jones and Peter Mitchell who shared second place with Andrew Wilson and Sue Risbridger.

WOSC treated the competitors royally on Saturday night with a fish and chip supper and music from a very good live band which enticed many people onto the dance floor (including an unnamed sailor from Wilsonian SC who really should know better) for an entertaining and enjoyable evening.

"Variety is the spice of life, that gives it all its flavours" said the renowned 17th century poet, William Cowper, and certainly the champions of sailing need to be able to master a variety of conditions, including, as it turned out, the wind conditions on Sunday, which were intermittent gusts of 0-4 knots. "Enough to sail" said the locals to quizzical looks from the hardened travellers. The wind direction vacillated ("oscillated" would be too certain a term in the prevailing conditions) from East to West via the North with a consequence that three boats could, within lengths of each other on the same leg of the course and at the same time, be sailing upwind on port or starboard tacks or free on a broad reach and all pointing in the same direction

These were trying conditions indeed, but somehow the race officer managed to achieve two more races, on a course shared with the Wanderers but only on half the lake. Clear air was a problem for all (any air was a problem for some), and again there were snakes and ladders, no more so than for Brian Lamb (fresh from his exploits on the dance floor) and Sam Pygall who at one point led the first race on Sunday by a country mile and contrived a spectacular fall from grace to finish thirteenth ("God works in mysterious ways" wrote William Cowper).

In spite of the conditions, the frustrations and the inevitable raft ups at marks of the course, the cream still rose to the top. Andrew and Sue won both races on the day, but that was not enough to topple Michael and Simon from first overall. Len and Peter continued their consistent performance to round off the top three. Also very consistent over the weekend was local sailor Richard Burton who borrowed a club boat with Hugo Burrows and exploited the conditions perfectly to win the second race on Saturday and finish fourth overall.

Thanks go to all the members of WOSC who volunteered on and off the water for making it an enjoyable weekend.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail No	Helm	Crew	Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Pts
1st	10648	Michael McNamara	Simon Townsend	Rollesby Broad SC	1	2	1	‑4	2	6
2nd	11093	Andrew Wilson	Sue Risbridger	Datchet Water SC	‑5	4	2	1	1	8
3rd	11067	Len Jones	Peter Mitchell	Medway YC	2	‑6	3	2	6	13
4th	6590	Richard Burton	Hugo Burrows	West Oxfordshire SC	‑9	1	6	3	5	15
5th	10673	David Roberts	Mike Bryant	Bough Beech SC	4	5	5	5	(DNF)	19
6th	11012	Tim Townsend	Catherine Gore	Medway YC	‑13	7	4	8	3	22
7th	11189	Nigel O'Donnell	Belinda O'Donnell	Swarkestone SC	6	3	9	‑11	9	27
8th	11170	Brian Lamb	Sam Pygall	Wilsonian SC	3	9	7	‑13	10	29
9th	10570	Ian Richards	Adam Light	Great Moor SC	7	‑8	8	6	8	29
10th	11183	Mike Weighill		Swarkestone SC	8	‑12	11	7	7	33
11th	10777	Russell Perry		Haversham SC	10	10	10	‑15	4	34
12th	6919	Sue Burton	Pauline Dobbs	West Oxfordshire SC	12	‑16	14	9	16	51
13th	WOSC3	Andrew Turberfield	Marion Turberfield	West Oxfordshire SC	11	15	‑16	12	14	52
14th	10586	Rob Hoare	Barry Buzzard	West Oxfordshire SC	‑16	13	12	14	13	52
15th	11129	P Hughes		Arun YC	15	‑19	13	17	11	56
16th	8080	George Edmundson	Lucia Winrow	West Oxfordshire SC	14	11	15	‑19	17	57
17th	10849	Alex Nairac	Anoushka Nairac	West Oxfordshire SC	‑20	14	18	16	12	60
18th	WOSC1	John Whiteside	Andrew Day	West Oxfordshire SC	19	‑20	17	10	15	61
19th	10755	Leslie Burton	Graham Parry	West Oxfordshire SC	17	18	20	18	(DNC)	73
20th	10880	Adrian Strong		Abbey Sailing Club	18	17	19	20	(DNF)	74
21st	6788	R Helyar		West Oxfordshire SC	21	21	(DNC)	DNC	DNC	86