The Grafham Cat Open

Grafham Cat Open 2014 © Nick Champion / www.championmarinephotography.co.uk

Grafham Cat Open 2014 © Nick Champion / www.championmarinephotography.co.uk

The Grafham Catamaran open took place on 25-26 October on a fine weekend with fresh south Westerly breezes. It was the first time for a few years that it was open to all catamaran classes and the club was happy to see the regular fleets return. 18 of the 82 boats taking part were Grafham members and racing took place on 2 separate race tracks.

On track Alpha race officer, Peter Saxton, set the favoured windward-leeward course for the 3 starts of fast boats. There were 20 Fast Single Handed boats with 14 A Class and 5 Shadows and the racing was tight on the Saturday with force 3-4 breezes. On Sunday the wind had increased to force 4/5 and most of the A Class fleet decided against racing leaving just one A Class and to compete for the prizes. The A Class of Chris Field narrowly beat the Shadow of Robin Leather on count-back and these two were clear ahead of the chasing pack of 2 Shadows (Paul Tanner and Tom Dawson) and the local Inter 17 of Neil Klabe.

The Fast Double Handed fleet of 14 boats were dominated by 11 Spitfires which included the youth squad who had been training at Grafham the previous week. Spitfires took the top 4 places with Tony Stokes/William Smith winning from Eddie Bridlie/James King and Sam Rowell/Dan Smith. The gusts progressively increased through the Sunday morning and by the time of the end of the fifth race (second race of the day) the gusts were getting towards 30mph, just 4 boats of this fleet were left. Racing was abandoned which saved the day for some as many sailors who retired were able to discard race 5.

It was a normal day at the office for the F18 fleet and they were disappointed to lose race 6. Grant Piggot/Simon Farren took the event with a near perfect score (1,1,1,2) from Simon Northrop/Hazza Willett who were second and the Grafham pair of David White/Jon Sweet were third.

On track Beta race officer, Nigel Denchfield, set a trapezoidal course with the preferred square reaches for the Sprint 15s and the Medium Handicap fleet. The 13 Medium Handicap fleet included an impressive 9 Catapults but it was the Dart 18 of Gordon Baines and Max Oscroft who took the honours. The Catapults of Gareth Ede, George Evans and John Terry took the next 3 places and Simon Clark was fifth sailing a Dart 18 single handed.

Grafham Cat Open 2014 - photo © Nick Champion / www.championmarinephotography.co.uk

There were 29 Sprint 15s taking part in the Inland Championships and 2 sailors had elected to sail Sport mode. This proved to be a good decision as the fresh winds slightly favoured this format. Racing was tight but at the end of racing Sportster, Paul Grattage, took first from the Grafham boats of Stuart Snell and Simon Farthing. Paul Craft was fourth and Chris Tillyer fifth. The Sprint 15 fleet generally sail in strong winds so they were disappointed to lose race 6 as they were revelling in the fresh conditions. Not to worry – they enjoyed to tight racing and the slick race management.

Grafham Cat Open 2014 - photo © Nick Champion / www.championmarinephotography.co.uk

Classes with 8 or more boats were separated out for individual prizes and individual reports by the classes will appear over the coming days.

The sailors went away happy after a good weekend of sailing and slick race management. The Grafham Cat Open is back.

Overall Results: