Contender Inland Championship 2019 at Rutland Sailing Club

The 2019 Contender Inland Championship was hosted by Rutland Sailing Club over the weekend of 19/20th October. The Contenders had a class start as part of the Symmetric Open Regatta and were the largest fleet present.

2019 has been a good year for the class with an upturn in open meeting attendance, a significant number of new boats supplied by Hartley Boats and for the first time in a number of years there were 5 under 25's at the 2019 nationals. With a world championship next year in one of the fleets favoured locations of Medemblik celebrating 50 years of the contender 2020 should also be a bumper year for the fleet.

2019 Contender Inlands at Rutland - photo © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

With the final outcome of the Travellers trophy also to be finalised with the weekends results competition was expected to be close, however newly crowned National Champion Stuart Jones was regarded by most as the favourite. As it turned out the bookmakers would have been very happy as Stuart had one of his very rare off weekends finishing in 9th but still did enough to retain the Travellers Trophy.

Contenders were the 3rd start and from the very beginning Tom Hooten shot to the front using a borrowed boat from his Dad. His presence was a shock to a number of the fleet as he had last been seen leaving from the worlds in France vowing to give up sailing and take up golf instead. Despite this he extended his lead throughout the race and finished well in front of 2nd place Carl Tagoe and 3rd place Gary Langdown.

2019 Contender Inlands at Rutland - photo © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

Race 2 started in slightly more wind and with the pumping flag up Ed Presley showed his supreme levels of fitness rowing his way down the reaches to finish 2nd behind a very fast again Tom Hooten, 3rd place this time went to Richard Franks.

By the start of race 3 the fleet was beginning to think that this was a completely new Tom Hooten Race 3 however would cast some doubt on this when he could only manage a 9th. 1st was Ed 2nd Richard Franks and 3rd although not his usual conditions to challenge the front of the fleet was Simon Mussell The talk over breakfast on Sunday, apart from would Wales comeback against France, was, could Tom regain his form of the first 2 races. The answer to both questions was yes as in Race 4 a marker was again put down, with Tom finishing comfortably 1st in front of Gary Langdown 2nd and Tim Holden 3rd.

2019 Contender Inlands at Rutland - photo © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

Race 5 would throw up a further surprise, finishing 3rd Tom thought he had done enough to win the championship only to find out he was OCS, the race was won by Ed Presley, with Carl Tagoe 2nd and for his only time on the leader board all weekend Stuart Jones 3rd. Going into the last race no one was quite sure what they needed to do to win but generally it was felt it was Toms to lose, with Ed Carl and Gary still able to win. As it turned out this was the shiftiest race of the weekend with several changes of leader throughout the race which was eventually won by Carl followed by Simon Mussell with Tom finishing in 3rd place doing enough to secure the championship win.

After a very enjoyable and extremely efficiently run event by Rutland SC the final placings were Tom Hooten 1st, Ed Presley 2nd, and Gary Langdown 3rd.

Unfortunately due to the significant delay with the prize giving there were not many competitors left to see Tom collect his well-earned trophy.

Overall Results: