Merrydown Weekend at Ryde Rowing Club

On the 27/28th September Ryde Rowing Club held its annual weekend of sailing races which this year celebrated fifty years of continuous commercial sponsorship by the Merrydown vintage cider company.

On Saturday the race for the Vena Phillips Cup was sponsored by the Ventnor Brewery which kindly provided 5-gallons of its beer for the delectation of competitors as well as others of its liquid products as prizes for the winners. In a Force 2 easterly the 23 entries sailed a windward-leeward course off Ryde Sands. Line honours were taken by the Hobie Tiger of Stokes Bay Sailing Club’s David Lloyd crewed by Karri Andrews. Unusually though for recent years, the winner on handicap was a monohull, a Laser Radial well sailed by Jonathan Evans of Royal Victoria YC, with Lloyd and Andrews second and Chris Gillies of Gurnard SC third in a RS 700.

Despite the pessimistic forecast of little or no wind for the Sunday, the 27 starters for the Merrydown Trophy had an excellent race in a Force 2-3 northerly sailing a triangular course including Sands Head post and the mark off Seaview. Again Lloyd and Andrews finished first but again the winner was a monohull, the 5-O-5 of Brian Newlyn and Dave Williams from Stokes Bay, second was the ISO of the 1968 winner, Barry Byham of Gurnard SC, crewed by John Hayden and third was Andy Gordon of Stokes Bay in a Laser Rooster.

The Aggregate Barrel for the two races was won by David Lloyd and Karri Andrews in the Hobie Tiger and Michael Cadman from Oldham, with his crew Graham Taylor, received prizes for being the competitor who had travelled the furthest distance.

At the prize giving, the Club President Ian Lennie introduced the Managing Director of Merrydown plc, Mr Chris Carr, who, besides presenting the prizes, handed the Race Officer, Neville Hill, a magnum of 1958 vintage cider to commemorate his initiating Ryde Rowing Club’s annual Merrydown Race in the 1950s. Mr Carr believes that the event is the oldest continuously commercially sponsored sporting event anywhere and hopes to have it ratified by the Guinness Book of Records.

The provisional date for 2009 is the weekend of 5/6th September.