Coppet Week Regatta at Saundersfoot Sailing Club
by Paul Griffiths 11 Jun 2017 11:55 BST
28 May - 2 June 2017
Coppet Week at Saundersfoot © Paul Griffiths
Saundersfoot Sailing Club based in Pembrokeshire held their annual Coppet Week Regatta last week and yet again it proved to be a roaring success with the colourful fleet of 75 boats from all round the country providing a magnificent spectacle on the water and bringing in the regular influx of hungry and thirsty sailors to all the local pubs, cafes and Restaurants.
The first full day on Sunday saw a lovely sunny day but no wind so a very gentle start to the week, luckily the wind soon returned and the Race team of Alan, John and Keith assisted by other local helms did a superb job and managed to fit in all 5 races for the main series by the end of Thursday - after a very competitive series of races the overall winners were popular long-term visitors Ian & Ben Fryatt in a RS Vision ahead of the ex-Fireball World Champion DJ Edwards now sailing the mercurial National 12 with another popular visitor Chris Martin taking 3rd place in his shiny new Merlin Rocket.
The fleet of 75 included 15 local SSC boats plus 3 from Tenby SC with the SSC boats enjoying the chance to race against both each other and all of the highly skilled visitors with the hotly contested battle for 1st local raging between Dave Plester, James Hayden and Paul & Julia Griffiths finally seeing Dave Plester take this prize plus the class prize for being the first Solo with other class prizes going to Matt Smith and George Crabtree(Fireball),Ben Eaves(Supernova), Mike & Marty Whittaker (GP14), Phil & Jamie Mason (RS400), Ross Ferguson (Topper),with Oscar & Lisa Chess being the 1st Osprey.
Prior to the prize giving the Club were delighted to present a cheque for £375.00 to the RNLI from funds raised and then the annual raffle supported by St Bride's Spa Hotel was drawn to provide the 3 lucky winners with the excellent prizes provided by St Brides Spa Hotel.
The prize giving on Thursday was again to a packed house and the overall winner Ian repeated the thanks of Martin and Keith to all those Club members who have helped to make this such as success both on and off the water while the Clubhouse team of Nina, John, Martin and Alison plus others ensured all were kept fed and watered.
To round off the week on the Friday there was a more informal Pursuit Race run off the beach in a very gentle and variable wind which saw a lot of gathering on the start-line where the whole fleet chased the smaller boats including the Toppers and normal Phantom sailor James Hayden this time sailing the Gull with young son Harry, the slower boats were eventually overhauled by the bigger boats with the overall winner being the last boats off in the form of Oscar & Lisa Chess in their Osprey just ahead of Peter & Igor from Tenby in a Scorpion then Richard (Dicky)Dee in a Merlin rocket with crew Nancy.
This is a great fun way to round off what is a real Family week both on and off the water which has helped to make it such a popular week and perhaps why so many return year after year.
The Pursuit Race winner in the form of former Osprey National Champion Oscar Chess is now off to take part in the Three Peaks Race starting on June 17th so our best wishes to Oscar in this, further details are available on the Saundersfoot Sailing Club facebook page.
Full results can be found here.