Nautilus Merlin Rocket Inland Championship at Grafham Water Sailing Club

The swansong of summer greeted the 42 Merlin Rockets who descended on Grafham Water for the Inland Championship, sponsored by Nautilus. Good breeze was promised blowing from the south east bringing with it continental warmth. It was also rather unstable and would provide tricky conditions on this very large reservoir!

The U flag was in force from the word go and race one got away cleanly. Right seemed to pay, but either extreme seemed OK, the middle being a place to avoid. There were significant wind lanes that were well worth finding especially downwind. This race was won by Chris Gould and Chris Kilsby by quite some margin. Nick Craig and Alan Roberts were second and Andy Davies and Pippa Kilsby were third.

Race two also started cleanly and conditions were pretty much the same as race one. This obviously suited the same teams as the first three places were occupied by the same boats in the same order!

Nautilus Merlin Rocket Inlands at Grafham Water - photo © Dave Philpott

By race three the wind had dropped slightly, but it remained shifty and just as laney. Again the race started cleanly. This time things were shaken up slightly as Mike and Jane Calvert took the bullet. Taxi and Pippa came in second with Mark Barnes and Josh Wilce coming in third.

Overnight this left Andy Davies and Pippa Kilsby in pole position with Chris' Gould and Kilsby in second despite two wins!

Sunday dawned but the wind stayed well and truly in bed. Occasional wisps of wind were to be seen but nowhere near our 4 knot threshold. Breakfast was a long affair which looked as it it was going to run into lunch! The club racing fleet provided a good idea of what we would be in for as even the large catamarans were struggling to move.

Nautilus Merlin Rocket Inlands at Grafham Water - photo © Dave Philpott

By 11:30 things were looking more promising. We were clearly not going to get a race from the bank and PRO Peter Saxton launched the fleet with a promise "Not to run rubbish racing". We drifted down the lake and remained under AP for quite some time while the wind came and went before it shifted to the south, stayed there and increased to around 8-10 knots - game on!

Again the start was clean and again the extremes seemed to pay. Hard right and left met at the windward mark with little in it while those not at the extremes struggled to get in. Paul Dean and Russel Hall were just as amazed as everyone else to find themselves leading around the first mark! After the second beat the wind clicked round more to the west and in creased in strength substantially. There was not time to reset the course and race was wisely shortened at what would have been the third windward mark. Chris Gould and Chris Kilsby stamped their authority on the weekend by winning this race making it three wins out of four. Tim Saxton and Toby Lewis came in second and George and Sophie Yeoman came in third.

Nautilus Merlin Rocket Inlands at Grafham Water - photo © Dave Philpott

We were now past the last permissible start time and therefore race 5 was abandoned.

Four races meant no discard and consistency paid off. Chris Gould and Chris Killsby's scoreline of three wins and a 9th was just enough to take the event by one point from Andy Davies and Pippa Kilsby. Nick Craig and Alan Roberts were a comfortable third.

Nautilus Merlin Rocket Inlands at Grafham Water - photo © Dave Philpott

Silver fleet was won by Piers Lambert and Johnny Ratcliffe and Bronze fleet by Ben and Sam Lulham.

Thanks to Nautilus for their continued support and to all at GWSC for running a superb event. Next years Inland Championships are making a long overdue return to Bala Lake - preparations are already underway!

Overall Results: