Conwy Land Rover Abersoch Keelboat Week 2017
by Mike Crompton 3 Sep 2017 16:25 BST
20-25 August 2017
Conwy Land Rover Abersoch Keelboat Week 2017 © Andy Green /
www.greenseaphotography.co.uk
A week of cruiser racing for five classes with serious fun and competition for all.
The continued sponsorship by Conwy LandRover has been very welcome and this year the emphasis was on creating competitive and varied racing for all types of boat together with a user-friendly start time and a fantastic social programme.... bands included Straw Dogs and the fabulous Junction 12, a great pop quiz and crew dinners every night. These are now so popular that they were always sold out, probably due to the excellent value and great food from our own in-house chef David Smith and his Angels.
The daily prize giving continues to be a riotous 15 minutes and the daily presenters this year Rob Riddell, Chris Mills and Nick Spall added humour, wit and a very lively atmosphere. The free nibbles probably helped - thanks to the girls responsible well done.
North Sails arrived on Tuesday and filmed the racing from a drone - very good footage that was extremely illuminating for many crews.
The two IRC fleets were well represented with on form boats and the current leaders of the ISORA series. Mojito and the Irish and Welsh IRC champions Fools Gold were locked in a tight battle with Fools Gold emerging as victors after a clever last race that pushed Mojito down the fleet.. 3rd, 4th and 5th were equally competitive with Injenious claiming 3rd from Daydream Believer and Jeepster..
IRC 2 was dominated by two more form boats. Checkmate Kids straight from the Half ton Worlds with a mix of Fathers and their offspring was always going to be hard to beat and they were worthy winners with the Impala National Champion Checkmate 2nd.
Checkmate Kids were also awarded the Paul Kearns trophy for going to the aid of a competitor in the water on quite a breezy day.
The final boat on the podium was She Too, a She 31b owned by the Fawcett family. A new trophy was awarded by the family in memory of David a wonderful member of SCYC for many years and a great supporter of the event.
The results in both the IRC fleets were extremely close in many of the ten races sailed with many races being won by seconds and even some dead-heats.
Small Keelboats is for boats under 25 feet and the popular Beneteau 21's had some great racing in this fleet. Mai was the overall winner from Jester and Nomadic. They were presented with the brand new Beneteau trophy donated to the event this year by the Teague Family.
The overall winner of small Keel boats was Rascal a Pandora 700 sailed by the Johnson's Alan, Paul and Matt.
Runner-up was the Hunter 19 Tokoloshee and 3rd place went to the Mini Tonner HRT from West Lancs YC.
White Sails is a very popular fleet, and and even more so this year so we divided into White sails sport and white sails cruise.
White Sails Sport was dominated by a new boat to the bay but not a new owner. Former Commodore Pete Hawkins steered Roxhopper, an X34, to 4 wins from 6 races. Argo, another new boat owned by the Askew family, challenged Roxhopper but it was not to be their week and were a commendable 2nd. 3rd place went to Peter Driver's Sigma 33 with a certain David Whittaker calling the shots.
Finally the White Sail cruise fleet were lead home by 80 year old Roger Fitzgerald and his grandsons in Ella Trout 111 from Pwllheli Sailing Club. 2nd place went to Frank Powell in Ard Na Mara also from Pwllheli and finally in 3rd place the Swede 41 Flicka sailed by the Haskayne family.
A truly great week with many highlights, but surely Neil Lamont's RIB "Audacious" with 20 crews powering out to their boats each morning was a wonderful sight - thanks Neil.
Further thanks must go to our support sponsors; Wombat and Arris, Firmhelm Pwllheli, Partington Marine, North Sails and finally the Williams family. Thank you.
Great racing, relaxed midday starts and the best bar in the sailing world makes Abersoch Keelboat Week an event not to miss.
Dates for next year 19th - 24th August 2018.
Full results can be found here.