Ladies competition and Alan Welling Cup at Castle Cove Sailing Club
by Tony Dobbs 20 Jun 15:52 BST
15-17 June 2019
Ladies race at Castle Cove © Sara Lloyd
Two significant competitions were held last weekend at Castle Cove Sailing Club, Weymouth.
The first was the Ladies competition held on Saturday afternoon. Wind conditions were quite lively and, in the end, although races were open to all dinghies, the only ones competing were Lasers. Lucy Bishop in a Laser Radial was the overall winner in a competition decided by the aggregate results from two races. Lucy won both races in convincing fashion.
On Sunday conditions were even more lively for the Alan Welling Cup races; wind speeds ranged from 18 to 28 knots. On the day, the conditions seemed to dissuade keelboats from taking part in what would have been a duration race over four hours. Only dinghies turned out to compete. The dinghy race plan in this competition is a number of races - up to seven - back to back. Ten dinghies took part, including two Scorpions. There were six races over three hours. The overall winner was Rob Smith in a Contender, closely followed by Oliver Fellows and Will Adler in a 29er.
Monday saw an excellent turn out in milder conditions for the fourth of six Monday evening races in what is known in the Club as the 2nd Monday series. This competition has separate starts for three different boat groups: keelboats, fast handicap dinghies and asymmetrics, and Lasers and slow handicap dinghies.
At this intermediate stage in the series, Bill Barker and James Cash in Barracuda are leading the 13 competing keelboats in that class, having come first in each race thus far. John Clay is leading the other ten competitors in the Laser class and Abi Richards in a Topper is leading the three other competitors in the slow dinghy class. Cara Jones in a Scorpion is leading a 13-boat field in the Fast dinghy class and Adrian and Tracy Neal in a Scorpion are leading the asymmetrics.