Solo Southern Travellers Open at Chipstead Sailing Club

Solos at Chipstead © Guy Mayger

After the recent Papercourt Open, the Solo fleet reconvened to do battle at the very welcoming Chipstead SC near Sevenoaks.

This was the last of the 2016 Southern Travellers which has seen a total of 197 competitors take part in the 11 event series.

12 visitors joined the healthy club turnout of 17 boats to provide some challenging one design racing.

Whilst conditions were on the light side of light Race Officer Guy Wilkins made the best use of the lake to get a long beat with varying reaching and running legs to entertain the fleet.

For those not used to lake sailing there were many lessons to learn, but once the first race was completed most (not me!) had grasped the idea of where the calm patches were, however tempting it might have been to take the more direct route on occasion.

With some very tight racing consistency and a good low scorer were the important requirements to getting your name up the leader board.

After two morning races, won respectively by Fraser Hayden and Patrick Ward, the fleet returned to shore for an excellent lunch provided by the new caterers. Included in the £10 entry fee, free tea all day and some lovely home-made cakes to kept everyone going strong.

A quick look at the scores revelled that it was all to play for and anyone of the top ten could still realistically consider themselves in with a chance of a podium finish.

Race three and John Reed pulled out a nice lead which he held to the finish to put himself into the mix.

Elsewhere Patrick Ward had a slight wobble with an 8th place, whilst Patrick Fell, Martin Frary and Andy Hyland started to show as contenders.

Onto race four and Richard Ball managed to win the dogfight in this one. As per the previous races the top ten or so boats all finished in very close proximity to each other so it was only once we got the prizegiving that the details of the day would be found out.

As it happened a three way tie was broken giving Patrick Ward the victory on his home waters over Patrick Fell from Papercourt in second and Martin Frary from Weston in third.

Andy Hyland and John Reed rounded out the top five.

With the results from the other Southern Series events taken into account Martin Frary is our new champion traveller with wins at Chichester, Portchester, Dell Quay and Papercourt.

Patrick Fell finishes second ahead of Papercourt compatriot Andrew Boyce with prizes for this series to be presented at the Solo End of Season Championship at Oxford SC on October 29th.

Overall Results: