Merlin Rocket Open Meeting at Midland Sailing Club

This was a busy weekend for the Merlin class with three separate open meetings to choose from. Sixteen visiting boats turned up at Midland SC on Sunday 3rd April to join eight boats from the home club for the first ‘Restricted Waters’ event of the Silver Tiller series, sponsored by Craftinsure. The event was also part of the Midland Circuit.

Race Officer Nigel Spurr set a course round seven of the club marks which included three beats. The force 2 to 3 west to south westerly wind obliged for much of the day, though it backed for a while during the second race. In the first race Mike Calvert and his new crew, Ian Garwood, opened up a good lead and were never seriously challenged. They took the gun from Matt Biggs, with Jon Gorringe in third and Steve Leney fourth.

After a good lunch the fleet went afloat for the second race over the same course. Once again the start had a strong port bias, and fleet had to decide whether to tack onto port as soon as they could or stand on towards the left hand shore before going about. Mike Calvert hit the front early on but was hotly pursued by Jon Gorringe and Andy ‘Taxi’ Davies. They finished in this order, followed by Richard Dee and Matt Biggs.

The fleet stayed afloat for the third race and the race officer set a new course to take account of a windshift. At this point a squall hit Edgbaston Reservoir with very heavy rain obscuring visibility. When the storm had passed by the race officer reverted to the original course and, with the winner of the event already decided, the bedraggled fleet set off to sort out the other places. In the lighter wind Taxi hit the front and was closely followed by Richard Dee. These two finished in that order some way ahead of Matt Biggs with Mike Calvert and Jon Gorringe in fourth and fifth.

So Mike Calvert gets his name on the Midland Mug once again, but a good showing in the final race got Taxi and Tom Pygall second place ahead of Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis.

Overall Results: