North East Youth Travellers at Scaling Dam Sailing Club
by Barbara Darling 14 Jun 2006 06:55 BST
10 June 2006
The third of this Trident-UK supported series of North East Youth Travellers was held at Scaling Dam on June 10th. In a brisk breeze the OD set an interesting B shaped course, which made for good spectator watching.
The Toppers of Dan Gaines-Burrell (Scaling), Michael Matthews (Sunderland) , Thomas Steavenson (Tynemouth) and Joric Gebhard (Derwent Reservoir) had an extremely hard fought race trying to catch Peter Logg (South Shields) in his Radial and finished in that order with Peter losing out on handicap.
Amongst the Optimists Peter Clayton, Megan Fletcher and Aaron White (all Scaling) finished 6th, 8th and 10th, keeping team mates nine year old Christopher Armstrong and Tim Shackles behind them.
Lauren Bennet of Inner City SC and a Castlegate Quay sailor Becky Robson had a close race in Picos.
The same course was kept for Race 2 and in mid fleet a large group of Picos from Castlegate Quay were experiencing racing in a good sized fleet. Andrew Llewellyn, Daniel Sutcliffe, Luke Troath, Oliver Carven and Collan Simpson were learning quickly how to sail their boats in the windier conditions amongst other boats and how quickly things go wrong if they rounded too soon after the leeward mark.
After lunch, with a simpler triangle course, a very determined Briony Scoffin (Scaling Dam) in her Topper sailed to finish first and surprised the boys! She was followed by the same group but also with another group of Toppers sailed by Iain Symon (Castlegate), Andrew Shackles, Adam Wilson and Leng, all Scaling. Sarah Mohan, Aaron Lagan and Laura Hillerby all of Inner City produced some spectacular planing in their Picos as by now the wind had strengthened to 20-25 mph.
The fourth race was started very quickly and the leading Toppers were having some serious competition when Dan’s main sheet came adrift and Matthews won. Logg finished 2nd after a superb demonstration of boat handling, with Steavenson third and Optimist Peter Clayton fourth.
The OD wisely decided to end the racing as everybody was tired and the wind continued to increase.
The prize giving was delayed slightly by a protest but as this was a learning experience for most, the time was well spent explaining and debating the issue.
Overall Results:
1st Michael Matthews, Topper (SYC)
2nd Dan Gaines-Burrell, Topper (SDSC)
3rd Thomas Steavenson, Topper (TSC)
4th Joric Gebhard, Topper (DRSC)
5th Peter Logg, Radial (SSSC)
6th Adam Wilson, Topper (SDSC)
7th Peter Clayton, Optimist (SDSC)