Tornado Open Weston Sailing Club 3/4 June

3 visitors joined the 8 club boats as Weston SC played host to the Tornado fleet. The competitors were greeted by a lovely sunny day with a gentle F 1-2 and a start time of 15:00 which gave everyone plenty of time to rig.
With the fleet gathered on the start line with a windshift caused the abandoning of the 1st start with approximately 1 minute to go causing some confusion. With the fleet regathered the 1st race got away. Grant Piggott and Greg Windle took an early unassailable lead, but with the winds being so shifty there was much changing of positions for the lower positions with many not being decided until the final downwind leg. Eventually the local knowledge of David and Dan Pitman proving to much for Hugh Styles and Tom Peel.
Race 2 started soon after race 1 with Styles/Peel coming from behind at the windward mark to win. However close racing behind once again ensued with the local boat of Dave and Susan Shaw taking 2nd and the latest recruits to the home fleet of Philip Marks and Dan Taylor taking 3rd.
Race 3 after a poor start Olly Harris and Stuart Offer led to the windward mark, but were on the wrong side on a windshift on the 2nd beat which let the Pitman boat take the lead, but is was the Shaw boat that took the win with Simon Northrop and Simon Farren taking 3rd.
Day 2 dawned and with no wind a long delay greeted the fleet. However, Hugh Styles led a very informative discussion on the training from Friday and the previous days racing.
Eventually race 4 got under way in what were almost perfect conditions and building seabreeze of force 3. It was the Styles/Peel boat that mastered these conditions leading all the way with the Shaw boat taking 2nd and the Pitman boat taking 3rd.
Race 5 again the Styles/Peel boat showed their quality with the Piggott/Windle boat ready to capitalise on any mistake taking 2nd and the Shaw boat taking 3rd.
In a dying breeze the final race took place and with many overall positions still to play for it was the Styles/Peel pairing that once again took the lead with Piggott/Windle taking 2nd and the Shaws taking 3rd making the top 3 a repeat of race 5.

Overall 1- Styles/Peel
2- Shaw/Shaw
3- Piggott/Windle
4-Pitman/Pitman
5- Northrop/Farren

Report by Stuart Offer.

I was sixth so no mention  still got one moment of glory in the write up. A good weekend put on by Weston. It was the first time a club has laid on a chinese buffet for the saturday night dinner. Just suffering from the sunburn that I got while rigging on Saturday morning.

Well done Weston