Optimists at the Grafham Easter Egg Youth Regatta
by Roger Cerrato 26 Apr 2019 07:09 BST
19-20 April 2019

Optimists at the Grafham Easter Egg Youth Regatta © Roger Cerrato
In gloriously sunny weather 41 keen Optimist sailors from across the UK made the journey to Grafham Water SC to participate in their Easter Egg Youth Regatta.
Under the watchful eye of PRO Nigel Denchfield the fleet enjoyed 3 races a day in predominantly light airs. Consistency and playing the percentages was the name of the game and on Day 1 both Derin Can Soyer in Main fleet and Ella Cumming in Regatta fleet demonstrated a mastery of the conditions by posting 3 bullets apiece!
The many families camping on-site enjoyed a relaxing Friday evening with the sailors all getting together for a game of football.
Day 2 initially looked very light but Nigel and his team still managed to fit in three good races before the fleet headed in for arguably the highlight of the weekend - an Easter Egg Hunt!
There was also a good turn out of Toppers which made for a very sociable event. Following the success of the Easter Egg IOCA are actively looking to run more joint class events in the future.
Main fleet prize winners:
1st Derin Can Soyer (Draycote Water SC)
2nd Lila Edwards (Parkstone YC)
3rd Cameron Bignold (Royal Lymington YC)
Regatta Fleet prize winners:
1st Ella Cumming (Warsash SC)
2nd Thomas Peace (Warsash SC)
3rd Felix Ridley Whittle (Draycote Water SC)
Full results are available here.