Pico Open at Thorpe Bay Yacht Club

Thorpe Bay hosted a combined Laser Pico and Feva open in near perfect conditions over the weekend of 24th and 25th June.

With light winds and sunny conditions, this turned out to be a fantastic two day event from this very friendly club where whole families get involved not just with the racing but also shore support, rib duties, food and entertainment.

Regular Pico racing has started to take shape at Thorpe Bay with a local fleet of 49 Picos competing in separate Spring, Summer and Autumn series - now in its second year due to the local sponsorship of The Wet Suit Outlet.

Saturday started off with a gentle force 2 with little sign of the sea breeze developing. The professional race briefs by Gordon Sanders and the senior race officer Alan Willis combined to make this a perfect introduction to those young crews who were attending their first open event.

The Pico format was two sail and two up with either all cadet or parent and cadet combinations providing some challenging racing within an age range of 6 - 50.

The first race was closely fought by the father and son teams of Rupert and Peter Snow as well as Mike and William Thomason. Young cadets - Bob Bennendijk and Max Duce scored a credible third. Races 2 and 3 were won by the Mother and son team of Tracy and Thomas Metcalf, being closely pursued by the Snows , all cadet boats of Scott Kitson Jones / James Poulton, and Charles / William Wynn Morgan.

There was a noticeable reduction in the spacing of the front runners on day two as the sea breeze started to fill in which helped the heavier crews make better progress. Races four and five were both won by the Metcalfs with Shaun Christian / Ella Kilkenny coming back to form with a third in race 5. With the wind increasing to F3, Race 6 was taken by the Thomasons, hotly pursued by the Metcalfs, with Bob and Max seconds behind in third and Shaun and Ella in fourth.

Overall the event was convincingly won by the Metcalfs scoring 4 firsts and a second.

Prizes were awarded to the top three overall as well as to the first all male cadet boat of Scott Kitson Jones / James Poulton and first all girl cadet boat of Molly Christian / Maddy Thomason.

Our thanks to Gordon Sanders, Shaun Christian and the Race Committee for agreeing to host this event and a special thank you to all the cadet mums for providing a continuous supply of drinks and home made cakes.

Overall Results: