Merlin Rocket Inland Championship at Grafham Water Sailing Club

A quality fleet of 44 boats arrived at Grafham Water for the final major event of what has been a great year for the class; a record 120 boat turnout at Salcombe Week and one of the most competitive championships since the class heyday in the 70's.

The forecast for Sunday was ominous with wet and very windy conditions due to arrive around the middle of the day. Consequently, a sensible decision was made to have four races on Saturday and try to fit the final race into the Sunday morning window before conditions became un-sailable.

Saturday's conditions started in a F3-4 Northerly that slowly dropped as the afternoon progressed and then finally disappeared as the fleet was on the first lap of race four. It was a testing day with big shifts coming down the track and consistency was hard to find. In the main the starts were port end biased but the right corner was the place to be, with many boats having won the start struggling to get across to the favoured side. Of course, just when most of the fleet had worked this out, the wind went left at the start of race three allowing those who had risked the pin end to escape into a big lead!

The four races saw four different winners with Richard Whitworth/Sarah Bines, Dave Winder/Pippa Taylor, Dave Hayes/Jonny Ratcliffe and Jon Ibottson/Sophie Mackley all picking up one of the beautiful race winners trophies. However, the consistency of Jon Gorringe/Andrea Ralph and Andy Davis/Tom Pygall saw them in amongst the overnight leaders going into the final race shoot out.

Sunday morning dawned with a healthy SSW gusting up to 20 knots and the fleet got away first time for a classic five lap workout with rigs raked well back and some scorching reaches to enjoy. By mid-race Roger Gilbert/Oli Wells had stretched their legs to build a comfortable lead but behind them there was a four way tussle going on for the overall title. Dave/Jonny looked to have one hand on the trophy when they lost their rudder on a windy reach. Taxi/Tom then took up the running but Jon/Andrea looked like they had taken pole position when getting into third place ahead of Richard/Sarah. However, at the final gybe mark, Jon/Andrea were rolled by Dave/Pippa leaving them tied on 11 points with Taxi/Tom, each with 2,2,3,4. Taxi/Tom took the title on count back based upon the last race result with Richard/Sarah a further point behind.

Overall Results: