Shustoke Gauntlet 2015

Pete Gray and Richard Pepperdine win the Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult

Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult

Competitors arriving for the 2015 Shustoke Gauntlet on Saturday 14th March were greeted by bacon sandwiches and a perfect 10 knot breeze forecast to be steady throughout the day.

The event, comprising of 2 x 80 minute pursuit races, has been an annual event since 1999 on the 100 acre Shustoke reservoir, near Coleshill on the outskirts of Birmingham.

The first of the 12 classes away in the cold, clear morning were the local Mirrors of Fred Briscoe, Stuart Sutcliffe and Tony Mason, followed shortly by the lone Topper of Graham Clarke. The forecast had been less than completely accurate however and with the gusts came thirty degree shifts which gave the Mirrors a heavily port biased start and a subsidised route to the windward mark.

With the wind cycling over the 23 minute start sequence, each fleet had to make its own decision on starting. The largest single fleet of 12 Solos and Streakers started on starboard and were followed by the GP14s, Comet Trios, Enterprise, N12, RS200 and the Scorpion of Peter Gray/Richard Pepperdine. Merlins and Phantoms completed the start sequence.

With the wind blowing down the length of the lake, reaches were at a premium and the faster boats struggled to do justice to their handicaps. By the end of the first lap, gaps had been closed but few positions traded. In the Solo fleet, Shustoke's Stuart Hydon and Nick Fisher from Chew Valley had established themselves as front runners with the GP14 of Steve and Jack Bennett putting a lone spinnaker amongst the single handers. The Scorpion had also joined the back of the Solo fleet.

Even after an hour, the Mirrors were still in a race of their own with only the two leading Solos and the GP showing any signs of threatening them. The Phantom of Jim Hopton was trading places with the lead Merlin of Rob Kennaugh and Abi Spurr until a mark rounding incident ended his race. The Merlins were still mid fleet at this stage and unlikely to be ever seeing the front runners.

Fred Briscoe's blue Mirror remained the lead boat until the end with the Solo of Stuart Hydon taking 2nd place from Stuart Sutcliffe by only millimetres. The Gray/Pepperdine Scorpion finished in 4th having relegated the Bennett GP to 5th.

Stuart Hydon finish second in the Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 - photo © Brenda Hoult

After a Shustoke lunch, the competitors ventured out onto a course now adjusted by Race Officer Chris Biglin for the new predominant wind direction and with a significantly increased reaching element. This time it was the traditional wooden Mirror of Stuart Sutcliffe that led the red sails and the fleet round the first two laps. Cole Briscoe was the lead Solo at this stage but had been no match for the Bennett GP which was already chasing down the Mirrors. The Scorpion had already overhauled all but the leading two Solos and was now followed by the bright yellow Comet Trio of Adrian and Tracey Padro, and the Streaker of David Turtle from Shotwick Lake.

The closing stages proved very interesting for the scorers. The Scorpion had despatched all before it with time to spare and was leading a clear threesome of the Bennetts and the Hydon Solo, which had eventually got the better of Briscoe. With an increasing wind and the faster boats thoroughly intertwined with the mid fleet, positions were changing every few seconds and, as the finish time approached, things were further complicated by most of the fleet being on a beat. The tracking provided by Sailracer proved invaluable in confirming the final positions.

The RS200 of Nigel Pepperdine/Rachel Rhodes emerged as the best of the rest in 4th, ahead of the Hopton Phantom and the lead Mirror of Sutcliffe.

The win in race 2 gave the Gauntlet trophy to Pete Gray and Richard Pepperdine in the Scorpion, pushing Stuart Hydon on equal points down to second. Father and son team, Steve and Jack Bennett were unchallenged for third. With two races in the series, equal points scores were common and fourth and fifth places shared 16 points. The Mirror of Stuart Sutcliffe took 4th overall by virtue of his 3rd place in the last race, leaving 5th to the Enterprise of Neil Barrett and Sophie Jones of Wanlip who had earned the place with consistent results.

Peter Maidment presents the Shustoke Gauntlet to Pete Gray and Richard Pepperdine - photo © Brenda Hoult

Overall Results:

You can re-run the race on the Sailracer tracker here. The system requires Silverlight to be installed on your computer and it will try to load automatically if you don't already have it installed, you may need to confirm the install when the window appears.

(When following the link you may find that a blank square appears on the screen, this can be closed by clicking the small square in the top right corner. When viewing the tracks you should remember that the GPS accuracy is about 3m.)

Trackers gave data for the Musto Speed Wall with both actual and handicap-corrected top speeds. Race 2 saw the fastest speeds.