North East Youth at Newbiggin by the Sea Sailing Club
by Barbara Darling 20 Jul 2004 18:01 BST
The final of the Trident-UK North East Youth Traveller Series was at Newbiggin by the Sea SC, where torrential rain and no wind welcomed the competitors. This was put into perspective by the enormous effort the members had put in to run the event. Their clubhouse is being rebuilt so adult members had been “bullied” by young Cadet Class Captain Amy Fayers and her younger sister Fay, to arrive early to clear the boat park, erect a marquee, bring in mobile kitchen equipment and supply excellent refreshments.
The O.D. Peter Chambers sent the fleet out, confident that the wind would come, and it did, not a lot but enough to get the first race started and develop into an interesting one with two Topper sailors from South Shields, Chris Harland and Peter Logg obviously sailing very well in the light air. A group of Topper sailors including Liam Alcock, Joanne Ramsay and Matthew Chaganis chased hard and all finished within two seconds of each other, pushing Philip Richardson in his Laser down the results. Even the Topper sailors questioned the results but after a double check with a calculator they were declared to be correct.
The second race got off with more breeze and Richardson seemed to be sailing well clear of the rest of the fleet with Alex Forth and Suzanne Thompson in Toppers from SSSC enjoying close racing with host club members Christian Lindley and Gareth Anderson.
Richardson made it very obvious in the third race that he was determined to win and eventually lapped some of the Toppers in a freshening wind in which Bruce Carnaby crewed by Craig Leslie in a 420 from Newbiggin enjoyed flying their spinnaker.
Overall Results:
1st Philip Richardson SSSC Laser
2nd. Chris Harland SSSC Topper
3rd Peter Logg SSSC Topper
First Newbiggin by the Sea boat Christian Lindley
In the series four events out of six had to be sailed to count, quite an achievement. South Shields Sailing Club had an impressive five qualifiers who received extra prizes and the winner accepted the trophy.
Series Results:
1st Philip Richardson
2nd Chris Harland
3rd Peter Logg
4th Joanne Ramsay
5th Alex Forth