Dyer Cup at Blackwater Sailing Club
by Christine Brown 1 Nov 2016 15:35 GMT
16 October 2016
Blackwater Dyer Cup © Steve Jarrad
Blackwater Sailing Club held their annual Dyer Cup Race recently. The trophy, presented to the club by the Dyer family in the 1950's, is awarded to the winner of this unique race which traditionally is held at the tail end of the sailing season. That said, with the huge progress made in the improvement of sailing clothing since that decade, sailing can now comfortably take place the whole year round.
With a lovely breeze, 24 boats headed down river to the end of Millbeach for the start where the race officials, Malcolm Green along with George and Viv Whitchurch, were already on station and eagerly awaiting everyone's arrival. Whilst getting ready for the start and fine tuning the art of manoeuvring, Jess Pickering was seen to rapidly exit the back of the boat only to see it then shoot off with the crew, young George Pickering, not aware that he was on his own until a fast capsize notified him of his single handed sailing.
Having honed their skills on the way down to the start, all the fleet were up to speed and eager to get going. However it turned out that that they had been practising too hard and a large number were over the line and everyone was called back to have another go. When the race eventually got underway a fast fetch down to Doctor was followed by a very rapid reach back to the Club. The short beat up to Nipper at Heybridge Basin was followed by a run back to the finish at the Club.
The fleet was dominated by the Fireballs who made up a quarter of the competitors and headed the results with the top 3 places going to Dave Hall, Mark Maskell and Maria Richards. The cruiser class was won by John Gibson and Sue Sheppard with a guest appearance on the helm by Charlie Stewart.
Meanwhile a group of youngsters had their own race on the lake.
For more details about events like this see www.blackwatersailingclub.org.uk