Formula 18 Class at the Grafham Water Sailing Club Cat Open

20 F18s descended on Grafham Water for the annual Grafham Cat Open. Sailing in the Fast Fleet they had nearly twice as many entries as the next biggest class proving how popular this Formula is becoming in the UK.

All the usual suspects were in attendance and with a good forecast, predicting the winner of the event was going to be tricky with any of the top ten capable of putting a good series together and taking the win.

Saturday's racing started and straight away two boats made their intentions clear, Hugh Styles sailing with David White and Rob Wilson and Marcus Lynch, in the fresh out of the box Loday/White Shockwave, set the pace all day with the score 1,1,2 to Styles and 2,2,1 to Wilson but on return to shore unfortunately for Styles he was awarded 2 DSQs for sailing through the finish gate downwind which handed all 3 races to Wilson - an impressive start to the very impressive looking Shockwave.

The rest of the fleet enjoyed some very close racing with Grant Piggott and Andy Sinclair being the next most consistent with a 4,2,4 with Adam Piggott / Ricky Heaseman and Toby Orpin / Lewis Crawford showing flashes of brilliance to set themselves up for Sunday's racing.

Saturday evening was a fairly quiet affair for most but some of the F18s blades were spotted in the Wheatsheaf downing “Squashed Frogs” and “Tequila Slammers” - no doubt feeling a bit worse for wear on Sunday Morning.

Sunday started with a gentle force 2, suiting the lighter teams. The first race was taken by Styles after Wilson had led for a while. Chasing hard all race were Orpin, Grant Piggott and Simon Northrop/Robyn Ford and this order stayed the same till the finish gun.

Race 5, and all Wilson had to do to take the series was put a solid result in, after a clean start Wilson/Lynch led at the top mark from Northrop/Ford who faltered after the kite Halyard Jammed letting Styles through to chase down Wilson who held the challenge off all the way to the last leg when Styles passed to take the gun by 1 second.

Wilson/Lynch had still done enough to head home for a well deserved early shower but the rest of the fleet now sailed race 6 in some wild conditions which resulted in a few big name casualties with Gummer, Styles, Northrop and Worthington all having a swim.

The racing again was tight but this time Orpin/Crawford took the Bullet from Adam Piggott/Heaseman with Grant Piggott Retiring due to the Princely price of not replacing a failing jib halyard dropping him to fourth overall.

A big thanks to Grafham Water and the race team who did a sterling job all weekend.

Overall Results: