Craftinsure Merlin Rocket Silver Tiller at Ranelagh Sailing Club
by Frances Gifford 9 May 2017 09:30 BST
7 May 2017
Sixteen Merlins gathered on Putney Embankment for the first Thames Series event of the year, which was also counting for Silver Tiller points. Free bacon baguettes and tea and coffee had everyone primed ready for a briefing that required some concentration. Ranelagh's an old club, founded in 1889, so we still use some old rules like rerounding marks, we have our own starting sequence 10, 4, 1 go, and this year we renamed all our marks, none of which have ever knowingly had names before.
So with a course of B(S),F(S),B(S),F(S),A(P),(B(S),F(S),A(P))x4, which meant nothing to most, and regular visitors mumbling about the one thing they like about Ranelagh being the simple courses, we all launched into 2-3 knots of tide and a pretty nice Force 2-3 Northerly wind. We did the Ranelagh thing of not going anywhere near the startline until 30 seconds to go and off we went.
What happened next is reported with some dismay. The visitors were essentially very polite, and let local boat of Frances Gifford sailing with Pippa Taylor (Hot Totty), lead the way for the first half of the race. This was pretty good for everyone, Fran and Pip were led to believe they were sailing really well, the home crowd cheered us on, believing we might win, and the visitors all worked out the course. (Sort of – a few missed out B on the first leg and had to hoist kites against the tide to correct themselves). It then got a bit confusing when on lap 2.5 which wasn't the same as lap 1 or 1.5, Chrisses Gould and Kilsby (Peer Pressure), having hit a buoy pretty hard through underestimation of a tide that had been equally strong throughout, decided to take a downwind route that was different from the local leader.
Well that caused all manner of confusion throughout the fleet as the Football Club shore paid handsomely so the rest of the fleet zigzagged around the place not knowing where to go. Locals and regular visitors (Duncan and Harriet Salmon) scratched their heads, while routes that definitely (probably) (possibly) shouldn't work worked, and the crowd went quiet as their local not hero dropped into midfleet obscurity.
Nowhere is the old adage about fat ladies singing truer than at Ranelagh, and despite being half a lap ahead, the Chrisses were never comfortable and indeed on the final leg they were nicely reeled in by visitors from Lymington, John Cooper and Becci Wigley (Two Planks) and John and Livvy Bell (Time and Tide) from Hampton.
Nevertheless, the boys in Peer Pressure survived the pressure from their peers and took the bell, from the Bells and Cooper/Wigley in 3rd.
It was an awesome race, celebrated with free jacket potatoes, chilli, coleslaw, cheddar, sour cream, bread and cheap beer. Commodore Brian Clarke thanked the visitors from 8 different clubs for coming along, and the Chris Kilsby thanked the club for hosting a fantastic event. We literally couldn't have been luckier with the weather, plenty of wind from a nice direction, but still really not very easy at all.
Overall Results:
1st 3778, Peer Pressure, Midland/Thames SC, Chris Gould and Chris Kilsby
2nd 3652, Time and Tide, Hampton SC, John and Livvy Bell
3rd 3732, Two Planks, Lymington Town SC, John Cooper and Becci Wigley
4th 3676, Hot Totty, Ranelagh SC, Frances Gifford and Pippa Taylor
5th 1742, Nutshell, Fishers Green SC, Jon and Annabel Steward
6th 3740, Why Ask, Cookham Reach SC, Pat and Jilly Blake
7th 3784, Strung Along, Lymington Town SC, Mark Barwell and Lou Johnson
8th 3702, Salmon Encroute Wembley Duncan and Harriet Salmon
9th 3780, No Name Lymington Town SC, Nev Herbert, Karl Thorne
10th 3165, Panatella, Maidenhead SC, Jeremy Deacon and Andy Johnstone
11th 774, Quiver, Upper Thames SC, Martin Hunter and Margeatha Herman
12th 3592, No Name, Ranelagh Sailing Club, Martin and Natalya Wollney
13th 1596, La Volente, Thames SC, Ben Marshall and Sel Shah
14th 1633, Fever, Ranelagh SC, Guillaume De Riberolles and Pietro Foschi
15th 3106, Eureka, Ranelagh SC, Brian Clarke and Tom Heyhoe
16th 3704, Factory Maid, Thames SC, Jemma Hughes and Russell Hall
