Solo Western Series at Sutton Bingham Sailing Club

Solo Western Series at Sutton Bingham © Max Robertson

Solo Western Series at Sutton Bingham © Max Robertson

With a decent forecast and the allure of Sutton Bingham's fine venue, five visiting helms from far and wide duly arrived and rigged their boats. A depleted home side from that we usually see at Sutton Bingham due to family commitments, etc. meant that nine boats lined up on the start line for the morning race.

Tim Robertson RO and Marcus Hindley ARO did a fine job on the committee boat despite a fishing boat loitering on and around the start line at the countdown. Fortunately after some debate with the OOD's they were sent on their merry way!

Race 1 was a nice long beat to the top mark (9) up by the causeway and then a across to 5, the resultant wind shadow off the Halstock corner catching out a few of the unwary trying to take the direct route. A nice reach across to 1 and then down to 3 & 2 at the dam. After a couple of laps the order seemed to establish it self, with Andy Miles in his 3 day old Winder 2 leading the way from the end of lap 1 and go onto a comfortable win.

After a superb lunch from the galley team the helms rearmed for races 2 and 3 which were going to be back to back. With a warming sun and a fresh westerly wind a battle of the breezes appeared to be taking place on the water between the forecast westerly and a developing sea breeze which kept trying to blow up from the Halstock leg. A couple of marks were swapped to try and take this into consideration.

Typically the wind then shifted for most of the next race to S/SW resulting in a very fluky fetch to 9 and equally stop start run/reach back to the dam. Our very own commodore showed us all how to do it in these conditions with a well earned second place.

Solo Western Series at Sutton Bingham - photo © Max Robertson

Race 3 was held up the Halstock leg with the southerly wind now firmly in con trol and blowing hard for much of the race. The long beat up to 7 tested everyone's fitness levels, nice downwind sailing to 6 and a flyer over to 5 if you managed to get lucky/unlucky with the gusts and then down to 1. Pete Barnstable sailing Richard Frost's boat led to the top mark this time, followed by myself then Andy Miles closely followed by the rest of the pack so a decent race was on. Though the superior boat speed of Andy Miles downwind soon re-established the order set by the previous races. Several helms tested the water during the race caught out by some of the stronger gusts.

Catch of the day was a decent sized fish caught by Andy Miles when it jumped in to his boat.

Surprise of the day was a rattle snake swimming past my boat on the run (Pete B bizarrely suggested it was only a grass snake).

A very welcome tea served by the galley followed by prizes presented by the commodore. Everyone seemed to of had an enjoyable day with all positive feed back received from the visitors.

Many thanks to all those who gave up their time to help on the day which without them couldn't have been such a success.

Overall Results:

Solo Western Series at Sutton Bingham - photo © Max Robertson