South West Area Topper Open at Frampton on Severn Sailing Club

South West Area Topper open at Frampton on Severn © Ken Elsey

Ed Higson leading the fleet during the South West Area Topper open at Frampton on Severn © Ken Elsey

South West Area Topper open at Frampton on Severn prize winners © Ken Elsey

Frampton-on-Severn Sailing Club hosted its annual Topper Open Meeting on Sunday 4th March. As in previous years, this formed a double-header with SW ITCA Topper Coaching from RYA coaches on the Saturday, giving an amazing opportunity for all levels of young sailors to get racing and seamanship coaching from experienced World Class sailors/RYA qualified coaches in preparation for the first SW traveller of 2012.

Both Saturday and Sunday mornings dawned dull and rainy with a very gentle breeze which built rapidly. On Saturday the club Topper captain and the SW ITCA rep, Des Robertson welcomed a total of 17 sailors travelling from as far as South Cornwall to the upper reaches of Gloucestershire. The open meeting on Sunday had a healthy 44 entries ranging from one season plus sailors, SW Zone Squad, National Squad and a few adult sailors to add some spice and interesting heavy weight tactics.

Race Officer Ken Elsey set a memory testing zigzag course to make maximum use of Frampton’s small but perfectly formed lake. The wind was NNW, but later slightly backed to the NW. The 4.2 and 5.3 fleets shared the start line. The breeze settled down during the morning and the 1st race started bang on time at 11am. The format was for 2 back-to-back in the morning and 2 more back-to-back in the afternoon sunshine. We were then blessed with sunshine, after a short lunch break. In the end, the variable conditions of lighter F2 to 3 airs in the morning to an increase of F4-5 wind, gusting F6 gave a chance for a range of sailors to vary their results.

In all of the races, the winners managed to pull out respectable leads, but there were competitive battles for the minor places. Freya Cumpsty and Oliver Martindale from Chew fought for first place in the 4.2 fleet with Ellie Hutchings (Roadford) finishing overall in 3rd place out of 11 entries. The 5.3 fleet enjoyed a tussle between Ed Higson (Frampton) and Tom Sully (Frampton), Crispin Beaumont (Bartley), Henry Martindale (Chew), Jacob Hutchings (Roadford) and Penny Guess (Bristol Corinthian). April Halls from Fowey, was the top non-zone / national squad sailor of the day coming a respectable 21st overall, much to the disappointment of Rory Cohen (FOSSC) who was running at 16th place in the morning, but forgot to put his bung in at lunchtime and learnt the hard lesson of a boat filled with water is not fast!

Heidi Cohen took the helm from Tony Williams (now Ex-Topper Fleet Captain) and presented all the prizes. Ed Higson thanked the host club for their sterling efforts in organizing the event on behalf of the visitors. The club looks forward to another successful event in 2013.

Overall Results: (top ten)