Sailingfast 420 Scottish Championship at Helensburgh Overall
by Peter Collyer 17 Aug 2017 14:05 BST
13-19 August 2017
The final day of racing for the Sailingfast Scottish Open Championships dawned with rain squalls skitting across the Firth of Clyde but no sign of the big blow that had been promised.
Three races were sailed in marginally lighter conditions than Day 1, and while the honours were not so evenly-spread the small but competitive fleet enjoyed another day of close racing.
Overnight leaders Adele Young and Dan Burns reinforced their top spot with a bullet in race 6 and were followed home by the scratch pairing of Ellie Wootton and Ross Thompson (Thompson being a last-minute replacement following the illness of Ellie's crew).
In third, and beginning an impressive climb up the leader-board, were Calum Cook and Johnny Thompson, while missing from the scoresheet were frontrunners Neil Marsden and Alex Hughes with an OCS. However, having only begun sailing together the previous day they had clearly got into their stride and ran away winners of races 7 and 8. This was not enough though to topple the super-consistent Adele Young and Dan Burns from the overall title as they completed the series with a 3 and a 2 in the last two races to win by a convincing margin.
A final day score of 3,4,3 elevated Calum Cook and Johnny Thompson to 3rd overall as well as taking the prize for the first U17 pairing. Also in the prizes were Calum Bell and Josh Hale, in 5th place but taking the trophy for first Scottish boat, Imogen Bellfield and Rebecca Coles, first ladies in 7th and Ellie Clark and Lizzie Cattermole, first U17 ladies in 14th.
Racing for the National Championships begins on Thursday and with new arrivals including two boats fresh from the Junior European Championships in Italy, competition should be every bit as intense as it has been so far. Follow progress at gbr420.uk and on the 420 class Facebook group.