420 End of Season Championship at Grafham Water Sailing Club

Hatty Morsley & Pippa Cropley win the End of Season Championship © Hugo Fisher

Following an excellent class open training the previous weekend, very cold temperatures and light winds greeted 30 boats for the 420 End of Season Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club.

Despite the best efforts of the race committee, a combination of shifting breeze and over eager sailors meant 3 false starts before getting race 1 away. ISAF representatives Hatty Morsley and Pippa Cropley dominated the race, leading from start to finish, followed by Julia Mellors / Alex Hughes and Vita Heathcote / Milly Boyle. Race 2 was led by the wily 420 coach Neil Marsden with Rebecca Coles for lap one before Izi Davies and Gemma Keers picked better shifts on the 2nd beat and the two finished comfortably ahead of the pack. The final leg proved an interesting decision “to kite or not to kite” which shuffled a few places for the rest of the fleet. Race 3 again saw an over eager fleet and a few more notables taking an early bath, but now familiar winners in Hatty and Pippa.

Day 2 was similar conditions - fractionally warmer but damper and a number of top boats needing to get rid of some expensive discards from Day 1 and the cobwebs from the end of season party. After a few more false starts Hatty and Pippa continued their masterclass of light wind sailing in races 4 and 5 with Adele Young and Dan Burns and Vita and Milly in race 4 and Drew Wright and Ellen Main and Izi and Gemma in race 5 also picking more ladders than snakes. Race 6 provided a novelty with the first “clean” start of the weekend. As the breeze dropped the first run was particularly challenging but Neil and Boo rose to the challenge best and led the last lap relatively comfortably from Izi/Gemma and Drew/Ellen. Race 7 saw 5 teams back early to pack up their boats, courtesy of yet more black flags. Alex Smallwood and Ross Thompson, our other ISAF boat, finally showed their normal form to dominate the race, followed by Izi and Gemma and Tom Collyer and Jamie Harris.

Overall, very worthy winners were Hatty and Pippa with 4 wins out of 7, followed by Vita and Milly and Neil and Boo. Further down the list a number of relative newcomers to the class showed the clear benefits of the class training as well as the value of consistency (numbers rather than letters on the scorecard). Thanks to the race officer for his patience and good luck to the ISAF boats in China and the Worlds team in Australia.

Overall Results: