RYA North West Junior Travellers at Budworth Sailing Club
by Tony Wilcock 2 May 2006 11:58 BST
1 May 2006
On Monday 1st May Budworth hosted the third event in 2006 RYA junior travellers series, sponsored by Preston Marina, which attracted 42 entries with strong support arriving from local clubs Redesmere, Leigh & Lowton SC and Winsford Flash SC. Racing for the series is being held in two flights, handicap and optimist.
The handicap fleet comprised an excellent turnout of 27 Toppers, 3 Lasers, 5 laser Radials and a solitary Laser 2! The sailing conditions were demanding with a force 4 breeze, gusting 5, blowing down the Mere from the west. The OOD set some excellent trapezoid courses and which tested the strength of the young competitors beating the full length of the Mere and their boat handling skills on the high speed downwind leg. The safety teams were also put through their paces in terms of recovery of competitors, boats and attendance on numerous capsizes. Race 1 was dominated by Joe Hanson & Chris Simpson, in Toppers, and Sam Thompson in a Laser Radial. Hannah Wilcock starting well back after a late start! sailed through the fleet to take 4th. The Toppers took command of race 2 and Hannah won from Chris and Joe, who had a spectacular death roll capsize riding a wave as he planed through to within inches of taking the lead! The event was therefore to be decided on the last race. Hannah got off to a much improved start with Chris and Joe in pursuit. Chris soon death rolled and the other two went well clear with Hannah covering Joe, for the last 30 minutes, to take the finish gun by a few seconds!
The Optimist racing, fleet of 6, was dominated by Lucy Yeates of Leigh & Lowton. and Rachel Wilcock of Budworth who continued their match racing dual of 2005. Several experienced that sinking feeling and abandoned ship! Lucy won the first but Rachel won the next two to win the Crompton Shield. Next stop Leigh & Lowton on 13th May 2006.
Overall Results:
Handicap “Blakes Marine Paints Trophy”
1st Topper 44788 Hannah Wilcock (Budworth SC)
2nd Topper 44471 Joe Hanson (Redesmere SC)
3rd Topper 45050 Chris Simpson (Winsford Flash SC)
4th Laser Radial Sam Thompson (Winsford Flash SC)
5th Topper 44474 Elliot Hanson (Redesmere SC)
Optimist “The Crompton Shield”
1st 3996 Rachel Wilcock
2nd 4630 Lucy Yeates
3rd 4310 Emma Padovano (Budworth SC)