Broadland Youth Regatta at Waveney & Oulton Broad Yacht Club
by Veronica Falat 6 Sep 2017 16:56 BST
2 September 2017
Fast handicap fleet at the Broadland Youth Regatta © Robin Myerscough
66 competitors, aged under 19 and representing six sailing clubs in the Norfolk Broads area, took part in the 24th Broadland Youth Regatta on Saturday 2nd September. Waveney & Oulton Broad Yacht Club hosted the event on behalf of the Norfolk & Suffolk Boating Association. The conditions were fine with a light north-easterly breeze and plenty of sunshine.
The boats were divided into 4 fleets (standard-rig Lasers, Fast Handicap, Toppers and Slow Handicap) which each had 4 races. Then calculations were made to determine which club had the winning team and this year it was Horning S.C. that was victorious by a clear margin. They had a small team of 8 boats but their sailors were experienced and their girls did particularly well, winning the Laser series and coming 1st and 2nd in the Fast Handicap. The team from Norfolk Broads Y.C. at Wroxham was the biggest with 21 boats and they came 2nd overall, while Beccles took 3rd place with a team of just 5 boats.
In the Laser class, James Nourse of Waveney & Oulton Broad led for much of the first race but was beaten to the line by Horning's Abi Holden. Then James's twin brother Edward won race 2 after which 4 boats were all tying on points for the lead. After lunch Abi Holden won race 3, just ahead of Harry Shipley from Beccles and William Symonds from Hickling. In the final race Abi came 6th but her main rivals couldn't capitalise on this, the race win going to William, and she was the overall winner by 1 point from Harry, with James in 3rd place.
The Fast Handicap fleet was an interesting assortment of boats including a 29er and a 470 but most were single-handers such as Laser radials, Laser 4.7s and Splashes. Sailing a Norfolk dinghy (a local wooden gunter-rig class), George Curtis and Andrew Morgan from Beccles won the first race on handicap, with sisters Ellie and Pippa Edwards (Horning) taking 2nd and 3rd places in their Splash dinghies.
Pippa then won race 2, with Ellie second and the RS Feva from Wroxham, sailed by Alex Knight and Alice Palutikof, third. This meant that at lunch, Pippa was leading the fleet. However, in the afternoon Ellie got into her stride, winning races 3 and 4 (in fact race 4 was a tie on handicap between Ellie and the Laser Radial of Sophie Thirkettle of Hickling). So Ellie was the overall winner, Pippa was 2nd and Sophie 3rd. The Norfolk dinghy was 4th and George and Andrew were awarded the Whelpton Trophy for the most successful double-hander.
21 boats raced in the Topper series and this was dominated by boats from NBYC at Wroxham. 11 year-old Tom Thwaites won both morning races. Then he finished 2nd behind his team-mate Sebastian Gotto in race 3. If Sebastian could win again in race 4, he would take overall victory but in fact it was Charlotte Knight who won the race and so Tom was secure in 1st place, Sebastian was 2nd and Charlotte 3rd.
The Slow Handicap consisted of Optimists, a RS Tera Pro and a RS Tera Sport. Of the 12 Optimists, 10 were from Wroxham including 11-year-old Jemima Gotto, who won the series with 4 straight wins on handicap, and 9-year-old Milo Clabburn who was 2nd in each race. 3rd place overall went to George Madin of WOBYC sailing his Tera Pro.
As the winning team, Horning SC was presented with the Centenary Salver while the Lady Mayhew Trophy, awarded for 'personal endeavour' was presented to two brothers from Rollesby Broad SC, Alex and Luke Babbs, who have only recently started sailing and did extremely well to complete all their races in the Regatta.
The event was sponsored by Autoplot, AH Economics Consultancy Services, Norfolk Marine, Jeckells Chandlery, Optimum Time, Sam Cole Food Group and Olympic Print.