Taggart's Junior Icebreaker Series Part 1 at Ballyholme Yacht Club
by David Nelson 19 Dec 2022 21:02 GMT
Taggart's Junior Icebreaker Series at Ballyholme Yacht Club © David Nelson
Clasess: ILCA, 29er, RS Feva, Topper 5.3, Topper 4.2, Optimist
The Taggart's Junior Icebreaker series came to a conclusion with prize-giving on Saturday 17th December.
The series is open to all cadets and particularly aimed at supporting those who are new to racing. A mainly parent led team of volunteers including RYA Race Coaches was available from the start of October until the middle of December to provide racing accompanied with on the water coaching (and yes we did tweak the NOR and sailing instructions).
Several days were lost due to the autumn windy weather and two extra days were added in December to compensate. There was a fantastic turnout with close to fifty boats over the series. The first ever Junior Icebreaker was almost all toppers and we have now seen the fleets expand to include double handers like the feva and 29er as well as the single handed optimist, ILC 4 and ILCA 6.
The biggest fleet was the topper 5.3 rig with 20 boats out across the series. The winner who consistently finished in the top few over all the races was Hannah Archer. Jack Ives was a close second and in third was Zoe Westhurst who did enough to get on the podium even though she had some weekends away on RYANI Squad training.
As with the topper 5.3 fleet, the topper 4.2 fleet had a number of new sailors taking part but it was Polly Robinson who continued her form from last year and took the top place on the podium. Second place went to Alex Eadie with her brother James rounding off the podium in third.
The optimist fleet also had another past winner take first spot with Matthew Holden winning convincingly from Oliver Stephens and Job Wong competing in their first ever racing event.
The final single handed class was the ILCA (Laser) won by Hunter Reddy with Annika Hunter in second and Hannah Dadley in third.
The biggest of the double handers fleets was the fevas with seven boats competing. This class has increased from the two we had last year. The "old hands" of Emily and Annabel Ridout won with a long string of first places second place was Jessica Dadley and Sally Nixon who chose the feva above the topper this year and the final podium place went to Peter and Mat Ridout.
Finally the 29er class was won by Joseph Robinson and Henry Nelson with Hannah Dadley and Toby Hughes in second. The club has gone for 15 years with no 29ers and with Hunter Reddy actively looking we hope to have three in the fleet for next spring.
A huge thank you to club members Kieran and Sinead for their sponsorship of the event which couldn't take place in its current format without such support. There will be a "Part 2" next year when hopefully the weather will be more forgiving.