GP14 Open at Tollesbury Sailing Club

by George Rogers 13 Sep 2010 21:24 BST 11 September 2010

Many of the 22 competitors at Tollesbury found the conditions quite a challenge! With the wind gusting to 25 knots the beats were certainly hard work however the long reach from the windward mark was superb for those crews with enough bulk to fly their spinnakers. Race Officer Derek Burchell had to set the beat across the strong tide and cleverly offset the windward mark to allow for this, the line bias seemed to favour the pin end but nevertheless there was a lot of bunching at the committee boat and a few collisions did occur.

Richard Lord and Norman Brown from Seahorse SC gave their usual faultless display in all 3 races. Competition was much closer for the lesser places . James Ward and Richard Whitehill were impressive in 2nd place and as a result of them overtaking the Beharrells right at the end of the final race Ben Kaplan and Roberto Serra claimed 3rd place on count back.

Steve Corbet and Steve Browne finished 6th and won the Prize for Series 1 boats inspite of breaking their jib halyard in race 3. The youngest helm was Annabel Jones-Laurie, crewed by her grandfather, who finished in 10th place which was an excellent performance in these conditions.

After about 3 hours on the water and having shortened the final race out to the main Blackwater estuary to a single lap the fleet returned to the club for some food and to discuss what had been an exhilarating day with many moments to remember.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail No	Helm	Crew	Club	R1	R2	R3	Pts
1	14030	Richard Lord	Norman Brown	SSC	1	1	1	2
2	13316	James Ward	Richard Whitehill	PSC	6	2	2	4
3	13885	Ben Kaplan	Roberto Serra	SSC	2	8	5	7
4	13876	Andy Beharrell	Ian Beharrell	TSC	4	5	3	7
5	13667	Jim Faulkener	Steve Cooper	BTYC	3	4	4	7
6	13003	Steve Corbet	Steve Browne	LoSSC	5	3	16	8
7	13870	John Shepherd	Penny Abbott	SSC	9	6	7	13
8	14020	David Innes	Jon Denyer	FPSC	7	7	23	14
9	13958	George Rogers	Jilly Wilkinson	TSC	23	9	6	15
10	13402	Annabel Jones-Laurie	Ron Laurie	TSC	8	18	8	16
11	8833	Nick Green	Rachel Green	TSC	12	11	9	20
12	13956	Roger Palmer	Sarah Todd	TSC	10	10	12	20
13	13136	Roberto Chacon	Agata Bartoszcze	BTYC	11	12	10	21
14	14058	Ed Coates	Ceri Rogers	TSC	15	23	11	26
15	11947	Martin Smith	Scott Edwards	TSC	14	15	13	27
16	12126	Nick Lynn	Val Lynn	TSC	13	17	15	28
17	13578	Keith Toovey	Chris Higgs	SSC	17	16	14	30
18	13798	Gary Tucker	Philippa Parkes	SSC	16	14	23	30
19	12???	Steve Graham	Nicky Graham	TSC	18	13	23	31
20	1365	Chris Parsons	Charlotte Todd	TSC	19	20	17	36
21	13703	Allan Hawtin	Mike Flower	TSC	23	19	23	42
22	9???	Rik Alewijnse	Becky Alewijnse	TSC	23	23	23	46