Streaker Southern Areas at Redoubt Sailing Club

A lovely weekend for the Streakers at Redoubt © RSC

Have you ever seen a quintuple stacker trailer full of Streakers before? The Jersey lot did themselves proud in bringing over the amount of boats they did to participate in the Southern Championships, and a great day it turned out to be with a lovely Force 4 gusting 5 blowing through making the long reach down the lake an immensely fun blasting session!

The first race kicked off to a superb start with a general recall! After the faffing about, the race got underway with Ian Bradley taking the lead, closely followed by John Burgoine, in that all too familiar, yellow-decked boat. Jonny Shuster worked his way into 3rd and as he approached John, the shroud conveniently went on John’s boat, leaving him no choice but to retire. Ian Bradley continued to lead to Jonny who closed the gap slightly and in doing so, opened up a substantial gap, between the pair and the peleton by the finish, even lapping some of the tail-enders. Jack Turnbull, one of the locals, led the pack to the finish putting him in 3rd.

Determined not to let Bradley beat him again, Jonny Shuster hit the start well and rounded the 1st mark in pole position, but, unfortunately for him, with Bradley still snapping at his heels. After some whooping down the reach, and groaning upwind, by the 2nd lap Jonny had made himself a nice 50 yard gap between him and his nemesis, who had created a 100 yard lead over John Burgoine with a brand new shroud. With the fleet stretched over 2 legs of the course, top positions were maintained until the finish.

After a lunch from the local chippy, everyone got back on the water avidly due to the wind having dropped a little.

The 3rd race got off to another brilliant start with the 2nd general recall of the day followed by great starts from some of the boats further down the fleet, and rubbish starts from the leaders! John Burgoine broke away leaving Shuster to battle with Bradley and Turnbull. It was 1 bullet apiece for Bradley and Shuster and the pressure was on for Shuster to retain his title, so he wasn’t best pleased when Bradley slipped past him and Burgoine also on the 2nd lap. By the 3rd lap Shuster had overtaken Burgoine and was fast closing the gap on Bradley. Sadly it wasn’t to be as Bradley crossed the line 10 seconds ahead of Shuster and Burgoine close behind.

Congratulations to Ian Bradley, the new Southern Champion, and to Redoubt Sailing Club and its members for a great event. Thanks also to the sailors who came from afar, having 19 boats really made it a worthwhile event and also improved on last years numbers!

Overall Results: