ITCA Midlands Topper Traveller Series Round 1 at Draycote Water Sailing Club
by Mike Powell 13 Apr 07:08 BST
10 April 2021
Midlands Topper Travellers Round 1 at Draycote Water © Malcolm Lewin Photography
The opening round of the 2021 Spring Midlands Topper Traveller Series was held at Draycote Water Sailing Club where we had an amazing 44 sailors enter the event.
There was a wide range of experience across the fleet with a number of National level sailors in attendance. It was also great to see a many new sailors entering the event who were experiencing Midlands Topper Travellers for the first time.
Wind conditions were good with a consistent Easterly of about 10 knots, this would ensure that there was some very close racing throughout the fleet. A Trapezoidal course had been set by the Race Director and covered a large section of the Draycote Water. Antonio Pascali led the way round for Race 1; beating Ben Paling into 2nd place.
Ben stepped it up a gear by winning race 2, followed by the experienced James Crossley. With 2 different winners from the first races, there would again be a different winner for race 3 in the form of Joe Warwicker. Consistency was the key though with Ben Paling taking two 2nd places and one 1st place so far, putting him in a strong position to take event honours, however it was still all to play for. For the final race, it was again a different sailor who won the race, with James Crossley leading the way to win the final race.
Only 1 point separated the Top 3 Sailors, however Ben Paling took the overall event honours, followed closely by James Crossley and Antonio Pascali.
We had a very strong 4.2 field in attendance with 12 sailors entering, making this the largest number of 4.2 sailors at a Midlands Traveller in recent history. Imogen Green dominated this classification winning all 4 races, with Katherine Gunn and Robert Byne following very closely behind.
Congratulations to Ben Paling (Event Winner) and Imogen Green (4.2 Winner).
Thank you to Draycote Water Sailing Club for stepping in at the last minute to ensure that the Midlands Traveller could go ahead and making it a superb opening round to the 2021 Spring Series.
Next up will be Round 2 at Northampton Sailing Club on 17th April. There area already 40 sailors booked in for this event so this is guaranteed to be another great encounter.