K1 Long Distance Race at South Windermere Sailing Club

K1 long distance race on Windermere © SWSC

The K1 Long distance race took place on Windermere on Saturday May 13th, and four visitors travelled to the North West to compete with South Windermere Sailing Club's locals, for a race from Fell Foot park around Rampholme Island and back, about half a lap of the lake.

Conditions were ideal for the K1 fleet, with a reasonable amount of wind from the South West, a direction which gives reasonably steady winds (for Windermere!). At the start Grant Brown (Tewkesbury CSC), Mike Deane (South Windermere SC) and Mike Commander (Teign Corinthian YC) headed into a break from the rest of the fleet, with Brown completing the windward leg first, followed closely by Deane and Commander.

They were followed by Dave Pratchett (Rutland SC), and the local team of Mervyn Hallworth, Alsion Graham (both South WIndermere SC) and Glynn Howson (Burwain SC).

After the first two marks, the fleet set off on a five mile drag race downwind to Rampholme Island. Deane, banking on local knowledge, determined to stay in the centre of the lake whilst Brown and Commander headed inshore towards the East bank. This meant Commander rounded the island first, closely followed by Brown, with Deane trailing by around 200 metres. The upwind leg (another five miles!) then started, and with whilst Deane quickly caught and passed Brown (local knowledge finally helping) he could not get closer than 50m to Commander, who working hard as the wind freshened.

The second group of K1s also had some exciting racing as they worked back to the south of the lake, finding the conditions more challenging as gusts caused some of the K1s to heel and flash their keels - but naturally, no capsizes.

As Commander led Deane towards the finish, a moment of inattention led him to the wrong side of the lake and allowed Deane to slip accros the line a few seconds ahead. A great result for Deane, and a moral victory for Commander. Brown came in third a few minutes behind, with the second group further back as the wind increased further, making them work much harder than the leaders had to. Fourth place was Pritchett, followed very closely by Hallworth, Graham and Howson.

A superb venue for the annual long distance race, a good time was had by all.

Commander joined SWSC members on Sunday for pursuit racing, where he made a clean break and convinicingly won the first race, unfortunately he had to leave for home before race two.