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Marblehead Eastern District Championship at Norwich Model Yacht Club

by UK Marblehead Class 1 Apr 2014 07:16 BST 29-30 March 2014
Marblehead Eastern District Championship © Graham Allen

Day 1 - MYA Eastern District Championship (Saturday 29th)

Competitors arrived at the Norwich MYC site at Whitlingham Lakes for the first 2 day Marblehead ranking event of the 2014 season. A steady SE wind of 6-10 knots called for A rigs for the fantastic entry of 24 skippers present and racing getting underway with the fleet evenly split into 2 seeding heats. These were won by current World Champion Brad Gibson, who with his own designed Grunge was taking up where he left off last season and Graham Bantock who won the second seeding race comfortably with his latest design Quark, these closely fought early heats set the scene for a fantastic days racing through the fleet. The slowly increasing wind gusting up to 13 knots over a long windward/leeward gate course provided fantastic conditions giving close and tight racing all the way to the top of the leader board. Peter Stollery sailing his Crazy Tube Free and Bantock were the only 2 skippers to take a win from Gibson over the day but other skippers to have strong heat results were Darin Ballington (ROK), Roy Stevens (Quark) and Nigel Winkley from Germany sailing a Walliki Skalpel.

After 10 races with 2 discards Brad Gibson was a convincing winner from the consistent Peter Stollery in 2nd and the fast finishing Darin Ballington in 3rd with his 2000 vintage Bantock designed ROK showing the competitiveness of well rigged older designs in the class.

At the completion of racing and the Prize giving, skippers adjourned to the Kings Head Tavern in Acle for well received social evening organised by our hosts Vinnie and Val Zammit and the Norwich Model Yacht Club.

Saturday Results (PDF format)

Day 2 - Whitlingham Championship (Sunday 30th)

After an early wake up call with clocks wound forward, skippers once again arrived to warm conditions and winds from the SSE, albeit a little lighter in strength than Saturday. From the opening 2 seeding heats, it was clear that the previous days form meant for little in the shifting lighter conditions. Both Roger Stollery (Crazy Tube Free) and Graham Bantock had wins to start the day off well with the former getting the bullet after a tight final beat with John Shorrock (Quark) and the latter holding off Tony Guerrier for his win.

From there on racing proceeded at a slightly slower pace than the previous day but with no loss in intensity amongst the fleet. At the top, Bantock continued his good form through the day, along with Tony Guerrier and Darin Ballington who each had heat wins and the supremely consistent Peter Stollery. Throughout the day slight variations in wind directions to the south made picking shifts over wind pressure critical, especially on the long downwind legs where hotter reaching angles to seek out wind pressure suited the 2 meter tall A rigs over rhumbline running.

After a shaky start, Gibson in the early afternoon had a run of 3 wins to close the gap on the leading skippers to make things interesting for the final 8th race of the day where both he, Bantock and Stollery had a chance of taking the event. Bantock nailed the left shift off the start line and was first to tack on to port and cross the fleet. While the pack followed he saw off their every move to take the heat win with Gibson 2nd and one of our two overseas visitors, Nigel Winkley in 3rd. Stollery fell foul of the dreaded weed and limped home for his worst placing of the weekend in 14th place. With scores tallied and announced it showed the final heat win had not been enough for Bantock to hold out Gibson after 2 discards with Gibson taking the day by a 1pt margin to Bantock and Peter Stollery a further 4 pts back in 3rd place.

Sunday Results (PDF format)

Another fine prize giving took place with all skippers roundly congratulating the Norwich MYC race team for a fantastic weekends racing to kick off the 2014 Ranking season.

Attention now turns to the next Ranking event at the Guildford MYC Abbey Meads venue on April 27th and the National Championships at the Keighley MYC over the weekend of May 17th & 18th.

For all Marblehead Class news in the UK go to our website at marbleheadsailing.wordpress.com or follow us on twitter at @MarbleheadUK

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