Grafham Water Sailing Club Restart Series Week 2

The RS200 of Flynn Davies and Holly Dabson leads the start in Race 5 of the Grafham Water SC Restart Series © Simon Wigmore

Grafham Water Sailing Club's leap out of lockdown has continued apace despite some very chilly temperatures. Midweek saw the first of the Wednesday night races with another big entry. Saturday featured the inaugural event of the new Fox's Great Eastern Tour RS200 open circuit, plus a large number of club boats afloat for adult and junior race training.

Sunday was Week 2 of the Spring Restart sailing series. Although sunny, the brisk 15-knot northerly reduced the apparent temperature to around zero. This didn't deter another big turnout of hardy Grafham sailors. The wind had large fluctuations, particularly on the approach to the windward mark. The big cats and asymmetric monohulls enjoyed the conditions on their windward-leeward course. Their spinnakers made for a fine sight as they charged downwind. The leeward mark was the scene of some interesting manoeuvres, especially when the other fleets joined in. Race 1 of the asymmetric cats saw the podium spots in the hands of Jon Sweet [F18], Nick Barnes [F18] and Tony Stokes [F18]. Jon Sweet took races 2 and 3 as well, Tony climbed to 2nd in both but the F18 dominance was broken in race 3 by Kevin Cummerson's Spitfire. In all there were 5 F18s, 3 Spitfires and an A class Classic out.

The asymmetric monohulls were very democratic and shared out the positions around the fleet. Simon Kitchen [RS400] score 1,3,1 whilst Isaac Marsh [RS200] scored 2,2,2 and Flynn Davies [RS200] 3,1,3.

Meanwhile a small fast fleet took off on the trapezoid course and produced a fight between Mark Rushton's Contender and Brian Biggs's RS600. They too shared the wins between them.

Six Flying 15s and the solitary Lark comprised the slow double handed fleet. The two leading 15s of Geoff Floyd and Simon Kneller quickly took a commanding lead, but behind the rest were fighting each other with the Lark getting in-between some of them.

Lasers rigging in a cold dinghy park for Week 2 of the Grafham Water SC Restart Series - photo © Simon Wigmore

Another large Laser fleet of 17 boats gathered on the start-line. Race 1 saw Phil Bevan pick up a sizable lead by the end of lap 1, and he was never troubled after that. Race 2 featured Dan Wigmore and Robbie McDonald battling at the front and there was much covering on the second beat, allowing Phil Bevan to creep up. Robbie and Dan continued their tactical battle on the run which put Phil on their transoms for the reach. The race ended with Robbie across 1st, then Dan and Phil.

Race 3 was a windward leeward course and to the surprise of the whole fleet, Steve James led for 2 laps by a sizeable margin. Unfortunately, a close encounter with the final mark allowed Dan and Phil through with Dan finishing first, Phil 2nd and Steve an unfortunate 3rd. Credit also goes to young sailor Adele Burbage in her 4.7 who sailed all 3 races in the very cold conditions.

In the slow single-handed fleet, it was the Phantoms of Sam Neal and Simon Wigmore at the front of the fleet, but on final handicap it was the Europes of Richard Major and David Summerville that took the wins, with races 1 and 2 to Richard and the final race to David.

Ian Walters 5586 won 2 of the Solo Fleet races in Week 2 of the Grafham Water SC Restart Series - photo © Simon Wigmore

A smaller Solo fleet this week saw the same 3 at the top, Ian Walters, Chris Brown and Harry Lucas. Colin Glover returned to lead the D-zero fleet, and Tristan Nichols took a win in the symmetric cat fleet.

Grafham Water SC is open to all classes of boat with strong class racing for Lasers, Solos, RSs and Flying Fifteens. Memberships are still available for the 2021 season. For more information about the club please visit their website www.grafham.org or call the club on 01480 810478. Follow the club on Facebook.

Results after Week 2: (top three in each fleet)