Shearwater TT at Stone Sailing Club

Sailing at Stone is always good, but it’s the Shearwater people that make a racing event into a great racing event. You can have perfect sailing conditions, your boat can be tuned to perfection, the club can be well organized but without that banter on the beach, the help you give or get from a fellow competitor, the buzz and anticipation of that first start without it, its all well, just sailing really.

We had it all over the weekend of the 30th June and 1st July. Wind, rain, sun and with the afore mentioned Shearwater spirit it turned into ‘one to remember’.

The club put on three back to back races on Saturday in a nice 3 – 4 with Alan and Jenny and Geoff and Amy taking the firsts. After a proper old Shearwater dinner and dance that lasted into the early hours, racing resumed at 11am on Sunday with two back to back races with the first in a force 7!

Survival was the watch word for most during the first race but Jack and Paul, Greg and Alex closely followed by Shaun and Dion made it look all to easy and for a short while Chris and Nathan was up there before an impromptu flying lesson as the bows of Airflow dug in!

The second race was better with the wind dropping to a 5 – 6 which is Shearwater Heaven! Shaun and Dion took this one with Greg and Alex getting 2nd. Derek and Grace took third after nipping inside Ruby as Bonnie helped Roger back on the boat after a small lack of concentration.

Sailing in this fleet is always close 1st and 2nd had equal points as did 4th, 5th. 6th. 7th and 8th had equal points as did 10 11 12 and 13. Whew what a weekend.

Top 3 were; Alan and Jenny on Alley Cat, Shaun and Dion on Take 5 with Jack and Paul on Think Pink taking third place.

Overall Results: