Heron Northern Championships at Redesmere Sailing Club
by Philip Lund 12 Oct 2009 15:09 BST
4 October 2009
A Heron Northern Championships event was held again this year, after a break of one year. They had been held annually from 1956 to 1979 but had then lapsed until being held annually from 2001, with the last three being held at Chase SC.
The day prior to the event had been afflicted with very strong gales but the winds had decreased considerably by the Sunday and remained fairly light and north-westerly throughout the day. Six visiting Herons came to the Cheshire event – from as far afield as Essex, Hull and Durham – to join the one club Heron.
Three were of the newer FRP design and one of these, that sailed by Dave Butler (the boat builder), sported a fine red asymmetric spinnaker – though the jury is out on how much it adds to speed as opposed to spectacle.
Although the competition was generally fairly tight, one helm, Andy Dale from Eyott SC, Essex (with crew Lewis Caton and sailing the epoxy craft built by the HDCA Chairman, Derek Dodd), won all three races – as he had done in the two other main Heron Championship events this year, hence also winning the Heron Travellers Trophy for 2009. Second place was won by Dave Butler (and his crew, Ross Fleming), with Matthew Pickett, the winner of the TT in 2008, being third.
Warm thanks were given to both the DO who set interesting and different courses for each race and to those who managed to provide fine hot lasagne lunches despite the club’s cooker being out of operation.