Allen Contender Travellers Trophy Round 1 at Datchet Water Sailing Club

Round One of the Allen Sponsored Contender Travellers circuit was held at Datchet Water SC on 16th May 2021. This was a rerun of the cancelled flat calm attempt from a few weeks previously. This time the small but perfectly formed fleet was greeted with a trapezing breeze which shifted round to the left as the day wore on.

Graham Wilcox led the first race from start to finish with the rest swapping places regularly in the shifts. Boat handling was at a premium on the short course and as Stuart Jones proved dropping the mainsheet doesn't improve VMG. Despite that he held on to second with James Spikesley third.

The second race was pretty similar with identical results. Graham was a bit more distant and James probably should have been second but decided to let Stuart in after he touched a mark.

The last race saw a reset of the course, the gybe mark now being used as the windward mark as it had gone that far left. Stuart just about got away with a port end start right on the pin and looked to be off with a nice lead. However, the wind went further left and there was nothing in it at the top. Stuart just led with Graham in close attendance and it remained so to the end. Richard Franks this time took third from James.

So with one discard Graham took his second open in a row, the other being late last year.

Thanks go to Datchet and the very accommodating race team for giving us a start within the club racing. It was nice to get out of the house and back to some sort of normality.

Overall Results: