M&S District Footy Championship for the Cadenhead Trophy
by Roger Stollery 2 Oct 2015 16:08 BST
27 September 2015
Clapham Model Yacht Club were the hosts for this event, which gave competitors 13 races in warm sunny conditions and a very fluky breeze for which the Long Pond on Clapham Common is renowned. It was an ideal venue with access along the lake edge close to the action and crowds of people watching the fun.
PRO Rob Vice set a simple windward/leeward course for the easterly breeze blowing straight down the lake and initially all boats were in their biggest rigs in the light breeze. The Footy class captain, Peter Jackson, sailing a simple balsa chine boat to his new design 'F Plan' set down the challenge to the rest by winning Race 1 from David Wilkinson's 'Iambus'. Roger Stollery's hard chine Correx 'Supabug' took the next 2 races before local skipper Jim Vice won Race 4 sailing an 'Ice'. Peter Shepherd sailing a balsa 'Fat Boy Slim' won Races 5 and 7, his winning streak interrupted by David Wilkinson who now had borrowed an 'Ice' because of technical difficulties with his own. Peter Jackson came back with another win and this put him at the top of the leaderboard before lunch with 21 points in front of Peter Shepherd and Roger on 23.
After lunch local member Weslie Philip joined the racing and created an unusual problem, because he was deaf and therefore could not hear the countdown for the start of the race. However Rob did some basic signing with his fingers to indicate the countdown to the start. Weslie thoroughly enjoyed being involved in the racing and always finished in the top half of the fleet including 3 podium positions. Keith Parrott was quite delighted to win Race 11, as he had never won a race at this level of competition. However the afternoon's racing was dominated by David Wilkinson with 3 wins and 2 seconds, but this was not sufficient to catch Peter Jackson because of his high score for the races in which he was in the clubhouse doing repairs.
The great deal of interest was taken by the spectators, who were amazed by the exciting competition and performance of these little boats that are made very easily and cheaply using simple modelling materials. There are a great number of free plans for making simple balsa hulls and effective sails from plastic bags on the Footy class website, www.sailfooty.uk.com.
At the prizegiving Rob was thanked for running another good Footy event, which everyone enjoyed and wanted to repeat in 2016. As is the Footy custom a novice prize was presented to the skipper who has not appeared in the podium places during the year's league events. This was presented to Jim Vice who was 5th.
Overall Results:
1st Peter Jackson (Abington Park) 'F plan' 24pts
2nd David Wilkinson (Cotswold) 'Ice' 28pts
3rd Peter Shepherd 'Fat Boy Slim' 36pts
4th Roger Stollery (Guildford) 'Supabug' 42pts
5th Jim Vice (Clapham) 'Ice' 59pts
6th Keith Parrott (Frensham Pond) 'Ice' 63pts
7th John Dacey (Clapham) 'Ice' 67pts
8th Trevor Thomas (Abington Park) 'Slim' 68pts
9th Weslie Philip (Clapham) 'Ice' 86pts
10th Grant Harris (Clapham) 'Ice' 87pts