Leigh & Lowton Sailing Club Revett Series - Day 5
by Paul Heath 10 Dec 2018 12:54 GMT
9 December 2018
The final weekend of the 2018 Revett Series saw the best conditions so far as 42 boats hit the water on bright but chilly day.
A westerly Force 4 breeze down the Flash and allowed Paul/Jude Allen and the rest of the race team to set a long beat to the windward mark before sending the boats flying back down to do it all again. The wind slowly dropped during the second race and became patchy across the course.
The overnight top three boats in the Asymetric fleet were missing but the maths were such that they could not be displaced. 10 boats took to the water and were treated to a windward/leeward course. First at the windward mark was the RS400 of Chris Williams/Martin Spencer (LLSC) who held the lead for two laps before Hamish Gledhill/Simon Dowse (WRSC) came through to take bullet. Behind them Bill Kenyon/Ben Swainson (Budworth SC) recovered from a pre-start capsize and boom pin problem to work their way through the fleet to second after Williams/Spencer, on the last downwind leg, ran over their kite and ground to a halt long enough for Kenyon to sneak through. Gledhill/Dowse won the second race from Greg Booths RS100 10.2 (Port Dinorwic SC) and Gareth/Jen Williams (LLSC) in their RS200.
In the ten boat Laser fleet Charlotte Greenhalgh (LLSC) showed total dominance of the fleet as she disappeared into the distance to win by almost 3 legs of the course. Tom Brindley (LLSC) missed the start and worked hard to sail through the rest of the fleet and just pipped Bill Busby (LLSC) for second place. Having won the series Charlotte sat out the second race and Brindley went one better and took the win. Second was Glyn Purnell (LLSC), who had traded his first race full rig for a Radial, and third was Steve Roberts (Radial – WLYC)
Eleven boats were on the water in the handicap fleet. Steve Blackburn/Royston Taggart (Enterprise - WLYC/Pilkington SC) had already won the series prior to going on the water. The spectators witnessed great close racing between the Flying 15s of Andy McKee/Richard Jones (Dovestone SC) and Dave McKee/Mal Hartland (Dovestone SC) as they revelled in the conditions. In both races, all around the course and on every leg, they were never far off the stern of each other. At the end of the day honours ended even as both shared a 1st and 2nd place to finish second and third overall. In the first race Mike Budd/Mark Greaves (Merlin Rocket – SCYC) took third and Julia West/Jo Hartigan (GP14 – LLSC) sailed into third in the second race.
Pre-race the final overall positions in the junior fleet were too close to call as the leading three boats, Leah Filding (Topper – LLSC) Thomas Link (Topper – LLSC) and Ben Welfare (Optimist – LLSC), were neck on neck on 6 points each and all three were present and on the water. Filding started the day well taking the win with Welfare second and Link third. So into the final and deciding race in the series and it was Link who took the win with Welfare another second and Filding third. As a result of that, with discards, everybody was now on 7 points. The overall winner was decided on the last race sailed between all three and so Link took the series win, Welfare second and Filding third.
The winter series recommences on the 1st January 2019 with the Marlow Ropes New Years Day pursuit race followed by the Marlow Ropes Tipsy Icicle Series running through to the 17th March.
Full details of the events and how to enter the series can be found on - https://webcollect.org.uk/llsc/event/winter-2018-2019
Full racing results here.