Finn Masters & Open at Mengeham Rythe Sailing Club
by Carol Carter 24 Sep 2007 17:00 BST
14-16 September 2007
Finn Masters (left to right) Richard Hart, Tony Locke, Adrian Brunton, John Greenwood, Tim Carver, Andrew Mills, Graeme Macdonald, Keith Fedi & Martin Hughes © Carol Carter
Mengeham Rythe Sailing Club on Hayling Island held the UK Finn Masters Championship on 14th, 15th & 16th September 2007 with the 26 Masters joined by 7 “younger” Finn sailors for the Saturday and Sunday for a combined event.
Friday saw ideal conditions for Masters – a good force 3 providing planing conditions and waves over a triangular course. John Greenwood and Adrian Brunton lead the first beat from Martin Hughes, John De Leeuw and Neil Robinson. By the end of the reaches Graeme Macdonald had moved into third spot ahead of Alan Burrell, both of them showing the downwind speed of the B4. However Graeme could not maintain his speed upwind and lost two places on the line to Graham Page and Dave Potter, with Alan Burrell finishing third behind John and Adrian. Race 2 saw the same order for the first three places.
Saturday dawned bright and warm but as the wind rarely reached force 2 the fleet sailed a windward-leeward course. The majority of the fleet headed out to sea, but newly arrived Tim Carver kept inshore with Graeme Macdonald, Andrew Mills, John Greenwood and Dave Potter. Tim went further east than anybody and rounded ahead followed by Alan, Graeme, John and Dave. Andrew rounded first at the end of the run followed by Tim at the west of the gate and Graeme to the east. The second race was sailed in an equally fitful breeze. Andrew again took the lead this time from Adrian Brunton, Howard Sellars and Graham Page. Adrian proved quicker downwind and took first from Andrew. With a falling breeze, the third race was postponed to the following day when stronger wind was expected.
On the Sunday, with the wind at force 5-6 and three races scheduled, the windward leg was set at 0.8 mile enabling three 45 minute sprint races resulting in some exciting sailing with the boats surfing the waves downwind at seemingly impossible angles to the wind.
Overall Results:
Masters:
1st Master, John Greenwood (Budworth SC)
1st Grand Master, Martin Hughes (Warsash SC)
1st Great Grand Master, Graeme Macdonald (MRSC)
Open Meeting:
1st Andrew Mills (Queen Mary SC)
2nd John Greenwood (Budworth SC)
3rd Tim Carver (Burghfield SC)
For full results log on to www.mengeham.org.uk