Noble Marine Laser Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club

Laser Inlands at Grafham © Paul Williamson

Laser Inlands at Grafham © Paul Williamson

This year's finale to the UK Laser season was not for the faint-hearted. The forecast was not the best but that didn't stop 187 assorted Lasers from arriving at Grafham Water on Saturday, 2nd November for the Noble Marine UK Laser Inland Championships. With all three rigs racing the event was split into two race areas, both using trapezoidal courses. Peter Baldwin acted as Race Officer for the Standards (37) & the 4.7s (30) on one course and Peter Saxton was in charge of the 120 Radials on the other course.

In general over the weekend the wind was an unstable S - SW'erly. It started at 14 – 20kts on Saturday and then during the 3rd race on both courses a 30+ kts gust swept across the reservoir and decimated all the fleets, broken masts, rescue crews being thrown out of Safety boats (so I am told) and general mayhem. All races started were abandoned and everyone was sent ashore. By the time the squall had passed through and the wind returned to 'normal' it was too late to send everyone out for a re-run of the 3rd race.

Sunday was again a blowy day. With a 10:00 first start both courses had finished two races before another massive gust, recorded at 38 kts, and with driving rain interrupted the third set of races. Everyone was sent ashore but before the last boats had reached the club the wind had died and all fleets were recalled to their race areas. About two thirds of each class made it back to the committee boats and sailed their 3rd race of the day.

Standards

Both Alex Mills-Barton & Jack Wetherell have had successful seasons, both in the UK and at international regattas, and these two together with Jack's younger brother Henry (he will probably hate me for phrasing it that way) and Hector Simpson were the main protagonists this weekend. The black flag was in use and a handful of boats were caught out in both Saturday's races. Alex took the first gun ahead of Jack with Master sailor Orlando Gledhill 3rd. In the next race victory went to Jack ahead of Alex & Henry. In the abandoned 3rd race Hector had established a good lead and wasn't in the best of humours with the abandonment. His mood was probably not improved on Sunday morning when he was amongst the nine boats caught OCS in the first race when it was the same 1, 2, 3 as last night. Hector however recovered his sense of humour by winning the next race. Jack was well ahead before he capsized on the last run and that allowed Hector to gain the lead. Jack recovered to finish 2nd ahead of Orlando. It was a case of vastly diminished returns with only 10 boats coming to the start line for the last race. Hector won this by a country mile to finish 3rd overall. Henry finished 2nd ahead of Keiran Hill.

Laser 4.7s

In general the 4.7s were a much better behaved class with only one boat found to be OCS over the whole weekend. As the weekend progressed a group of five junior sailors started to dominate the results. Ben Whaley, who has been improving at each event he has attended, won the first race on Saturday from Peter Daniels, Jordan Giles & William Bedford. William then went on to finish the next race at the front of the fleet only to be greeted by a silence that was not golden. He had been declared OCS and this left Jordan to win ahead of William Heritage, Ben & Ross Thompson. William (Bedford) recovered in the best possible way on Sunday by winning the first two races ahead of Peter, Jordan & Ben, in different combinations. By mid-day the fleet was thinning very quickly as more of the youngsters decided that the conditions were too much. Ben & William led the seven starters in the final race to the finish with Sawa Tretyakov in 3rd. Overall Ben took the title with William 2nd but the positions would have been reversed if William had not been eliminated from Saturday's race. It is a hard life at the top!

Radials

With 120 Radials entered Race Officer Peter Saxton divided them into four groups and they sailed in the Round Robin format on Saturday, giving two starts to each race. The abandonment of the 3rd race on Saturday meant that the Round Robin Series was incomplete and the fleet continued to race in flights, rather than Gold & Silver fleets, on Sunday. With the top ladies away it was, unusually, an event dominated by the men. Jon Emmett and John Booth have been battling for top spot all season at the Qualifiers and the Nationals and Jon has had the best of the season so far. Due to the ranking system these two did not race against each other until the first race on Sunday morning. By that time Jon had won both his races and John had won the race that he managed to finish on Saturday. David Jessop had taken the gun in that race to put with his 3rd place in Race 1 and leave him 2nd overall overnight. Behind Jon & David there was a group of sailors, including Anthony Parke, Sam Whaley, James Skulczuk, Matthew Stephens and Rhiannon Massey, who had all sailed consistently and had top three placings.

As previously mentioned Jon & John met in the first of Sunday's races. Jon won this convincingly and Niall Houston beat John into 2nd place. John then had to give 2nd best to Anthony Parke in his next race and, whilst Jon could also only manage 2nd behind James, he had done enough to win overall. So when the 3rd race was initially abandoned and then re-sailed Jon was ashore and already de-rigging his boat. John & Anthony won their respective starts which confirmed their 2nd & 3rd places overall. Rhiannon was the first Lady in 7th place overall.

At the Prizegiving on Sunday afternoon the draw was made for Wildwind Sailing Holiday. 88 Laser sailors from across the UK had qualified through the 10 Regional Grand Prix Series. The winner was Rob Lennox from Barnt Green S.C. and he will enjoy a one week sailing holiday in Vassiliki next year courtesy of Simon Morgan at Wildwind Sailing Holidays.

Thanks go to everyone at Grafham Water who helped with the event. In particular to the two Peters who managed to keep the racing going in very difficult conditions and also to the Safety crews who had their work cut out at times.

Overall Results: (top five in each fleet)

Full results can be found on the UKLA website, www.laser.org.uk

Laser Inlands at Grafham - photo © Paul Williamson