Plum Duff at Delph Sailing Club
by Gary Stephenson 1 Jan 2008 17:02 GMT
30 December 2007
Delph Sailing club hosted its annual prestige invitation pursuit race event in mild temperatures and light fickle winds which did not deter a turn out of 30 plus boats including a number of national and world champions.
The first race was postponed following the briefing where the wind was blowing well and promptly died as the race officer concluded. The officials were scratching heads and praying for wind for the next hour and decided to serve lunch after an hour's postponement and yes, during lunch the wind built and then disappeared as the first boats to start crossed the line, one did not make the start on time due to the wind falling away. The race was now all about who could master the difficult conditions and stay in the wind. Brothers Jack & Henry Wetherell from Beaver SC in their Toppers held the lead for more than half the race until local RS200 sailors and inland champions Chris Pickles and Laura Westell threaded their way through the other boats and took the lead and held it to the very end with Phil Worth another Delph member sailing his Phantom giving Chris and Laura neck ache in the final stages of the race with Tony Wetherell from Beaver SC sailing a borrowed Phantom for the first time coming a close third.
For the second race the wind filled in a little more and developed with some real battles between the classes throughout the fleet. The most enthralling was between Chris Pickle & Laura Westall in the RS200 and Phil Worth in his Phantom who managed to take and hold the lead to be declared the overall winner of the Plum Duff and restoring the precious pudding back to its true home after a year on loan to Mark Platt from Bolton Sailing Club whose members turned out in significant numbers including their big guns Richard and Andrew Craig in order to try and retain the pudding.
£150 was raised for the RNLI and the next special event at Delph SC is Steve Cockerill's Boat Whisperer talk scheduled for 7.30pm Monday 31st March tickets are on open sale and can be obtained by e-mailing Hilary Baycroft at 
