Grafham Catamaran Open

Paul Grattage winner of the Sprint 15 Inland Championships © Linzi Swindon

It was with some trepidation that Catamarans gathered at Grafham on the weekend of 26/27 October for the Grafham Invitation Catamaran Open. The forecast was for strong winds leading up to an 80mph storm (St Jude) on Sunday night.

The strong wind forecast put off a number of sailors from coming particularly Fast Single handed class (e.g. A Class, Shadow, etc) and their entry reduced from 16 last year to one (A class) this year but other classes such as the Sprint 15 gained entries as sailors with more than one boat opted for the smaller rig of the Sprint 15. This ended up with an impressive entry of 40 Sprint 15s.

The forecast on Saturday (18mph SW winds with gusts up to 30mph) looked sailable so Grafham played their trump card which was to bring one of the Sunday races forward to sail 4 races back to back on Saturday leaving just 2 races for Sunday (as the Sunday forecast was for strengthening winds). As it turned out the stronger winds caused racing to be cancelled on the Sunday but at least all classes managed 4 good races with 1 discard on the Saturday.

Course Alpha was a windward – leeward course for the fast singlehanded cats and the Spitfire Fleet set by race officer, John Aston. The Spitfires had an entry of just 5 boats and proceedings were dominated by Grant Piggott and Megan Smith (Weston/Grafham) who achieved a perfect score with 4 wins. Oliver and James King of Brightlingsea took second place with 3 second places. In the single handed fleet Richard Hargreaves was the sole entry (A class) but he got some practice in between capsizes.

Course Bravo was a trapezoidal course set by race officer, Peter Saxton, for the Dart 18s the Sprint 15s and the medium handicap boats, most of which were Catapults. The Dart 18 Single Handed Championships had 11 entries and despite a number of the tail-enders suffering multiple capsizes most of the fleet coped extremely well with the challenging conditions. Mat Exon from Bridlington won the event with two firsts and a second but second and third places were taken by the Grafham boats of David Wright (1,4,2) and Neil Klabe (3,1,4). The medium handicap fleet group was won by local Dart 18 sailed by Gordon Baines and Mike Tucker (1,1,1) but the Catapults of George Evans (1,3,2), Gareth Ede (2,4,2), Alistair Forrest and Paul Ellis took the next 4 places ahead of Nacra 500 of Mark Richards and Simon Clark. In the Sprint 15 Inland Championship racing was very tight between the top 10 or so helms but youth won over experience as Paul Grattage (1,2,4) of Shanklin took the title by a single point from Stuart Snell (1,6,1) and Mark Aldridge (2,4,2) both of Grafham. David Ball (Marconi) was forth ahead of Simon Farthing (Grafham) and Robert Finch of Stewartby.

The sailors returned to the bar knackered after 4 hard races and nearly 5 hours on the water. The early evening hot meal in the top bar gave the fleets an opportunity to wind down, socialize and to inspect the pictures taken on the water by Peter Newton.

On Sunday morning when racing was cancelled on account of the building wind, the sailors understood and were grateful for an early decision. So most left after a challenging four races sailing, grateful for the slick race management and organisation at Grafham.

Overall Results:

Sprint 15 Inlands

Fast Single Handers Fleet

Spitfire Fleet

Dart 18 Fleet

Medium Handicap Fleet