Another successful season at Shotwick Lake Sailing

by Dave Turtle 19 Dec 2019 13:56 GMT

The last day of another successful season at Shotwick Lake Sailing concluded with a fantastic festive buffet preceded by the annual prize-giving and the traditional "fun" Frostbite pursuit race.

Every year the club awards a special prize in recognition of outstanding contribution to the club and this time the worthy winners were Dave Herbstritt and Josie Airns. Best Newcomer to the club was awarded to Callum Wilson.

The Frostbite pursuit race is based on personal handicaps but a lull in the wind at the start of the race enabled the faster boats to quickly work their way through the fleet. At the end of the sixty-minute race, Kieran was just a boat length in front of Paul, both in Streakers, followed by Dave Thomas in his Solo.

Frostbite Open Series

The Frostbite Open series runs for six weeks with two races each Sunday and average lap times are used to enable the mixed handicap fleet to compete on level terms.

Shotwick Lake is situated on the edge of the Dee estuary just inside the Welsh border and is ideally located to get the best of any wind, whatever direction. This proved a great advantage with much of the series plagued with very light winds until the very last day when there was too much wind for most! In fact, only Dave and Shan stayed upright and finished the last race sensibly choosing to sail their Enterprise with a reduced rig.

Dave and Kieran sailing a Miracle, with six first places, won the series convincingly but even they failed to finish the final race and needed to be rescued from the far end of the lake! Paul in his Streaker finished second overall just half a point ahead of Gordon and Evie making their debut in the RS200 fleet.

There was a total entry of over twenty boats with first visitor Andy Todd, from Chester and Bala Sailing Clubs, in an RS100 who finished in 7th place. Very impressive for such a fast, asymmetric boat on a confined water!

Overall Results:

Pos	Helm / Crew	Class
1st	Dave Turtle and Kieran	Miracle
2nd	Paul Newman	Streaker
3rd	Gordon Bennell and Evie	RS 200
4th	Gaz Henshall and Hannah Brake	RS 200
5th	Ian Postings	Lightning 368
6th	Dave Thomas and Shan Stapley	Enterprise
7th	Andy Todd	RS 100 8.4
8th	Mark Heaton	Lightning 368
9th	Joe Sargent	Laser Radial
10th	Jim Young and Jeanette Davies	Enterprise

Thanks go to the various race officers, safety crew and galley helpers who make these events so successful. A great end to a great season!

Roll on the Brass Monkey Open Series starting on 2nd February 2020.

Further details can be found on our website, www.shotwicksailing.org