Britannia Trophy at Blackwater Sailing Club

Blackwater SC Britannia Trophy 2015 © Oliver Southgate / OJSPhotography

Blackwater SC Britannia Trophy 2015 © Oliver Southgate / OJSPhotography

What a difference 24 hours makes! Overcast and gusty on Sunday, sunshine and shifty on Monday.

The fast fleet continued their trophy race winning ways from the 2014 season this weekend, more specifically the fireballs showed fleet dominance by taking all podium positions for the Britannia Trophy.

The weekends eventual winners Charlie Stewart crewed by Josh Kuhl took race one on Sunday from Gareth Davies and Rob Appleby sailing their 49er by 7 seconds and Dave Nichols crewing Brett Townsends Fireball only another 5 behind them on corrected time.

Race 2 got underway after a short lunch break with Neil McCulloch and Jane Arnold's pink spitfire whizzing around the course in 27 minutes take the corrected win by one minute from Brett and Dave's Fireball. Terry Crook racing his Blaze posted a 3rd to make sure the medium fleet were represented in this all in series.

Monday's blue skies and shifty conditions meant the first race of the day saw a few overly keen starters bundle in at the limit mark and become OCS, making sure they had to go back to still be in contention of the weekend meant Charlie and new crew Lucy had to return along with several other fireballs along with John Crooks Devoti D-Zero. The 90 degree shift turned the long run to Shambles into a tight spinnaker reach for the Fireballs propelling Mark Maskell and Nigel Shepperd in to first followed by Martin Scarth accompanied by Dave Hall on the wire, and chasing them down was Brett and Dave who looked like they were on for the trophy series win at this point.

Blackwater SC Britannia Trophy 2015 - photo © Oliver Southgate

A quick turn around with a back to back start for the fourth and final race with a change of course to suit the new wind direction and change in tide allowed the whole fleet a clean getaway for with the boats spread out the full length of the line. Mike Pearce's Wayfarer crewed by Steve Ash sailed a clean race to take the corrected time victory from Charlie and Lucy in second followed by father and son team of Bryan and Will Sargeant's Fireball in third.

After four races and one discard Charlie and crews Josh and Lucy took victory by one point from Brett and Dave, 3rd place went on count back making for a very close weekend of racing.

Brett Townsend and Dave Nichols during the Blackwater SC Britannia Trophy 2015 - photo © Oliver Southgate

Video from the racing can be seen on Facebook here.

Overall Results: