GP14 Open at Nantwich & Border Counties Sailing Club

by Peter Thoms 3 Jun 2021 12:42 BST 30 May 2021

A very pleasant morning greeted 5 visitors and 8 home club boats to Nantwich midland area open meeting. The nice gentle north/north easterly breeze allowed the days OOD Paul Scott to set a course that made use of all of the lake.

Thirteen boats started the first race, crossing a slightly tight start line as is often the case on some of the smaller lakes. Four boats got away from the rest of the pack at the first windward mark with John and Kate Bate (Nantwich) taking an early lead from John and Jack Telford (Bassenthwaite), the lead changed several times between the Bates and the Telfords until Sam Watson crewed by Matt Birks (Nantwich) took the lead at a very tricky number one windward mark with a lap to go, although the final result of this race went down to who held it together on the final leg to the finish with Sam and Matt holding onto the lead from John and Jack in second, third John and Kate followed closely in fourth by Pete Thoms and Dawn Frost (Nantwich).

After lunch the second race saw the same four boats leading but with Sam and Matt getting away at the front leaving the other three to fight for the places with Thoms and Frost holding on to second place followed by the Telfords and then the Bates with some very closely contested racing all the way through the fleet.

The third race was a straight fight between the two gold fleet boats with father and son team of John and Jack telford coming out on top after a very close race with Sam and Matt, with Keith Budden and Ben Roberts (Trimpley) coming third.

Thanks go to Richards Binns and his team for organising a very enjoyable and competitive day, thank you to those visitors who made the effort to come and compete with us in these strange times and to everyone for following the covid guidelines.

Hope to see you at Bartley on the 13th June and Trimpley the following Saturday 19th of June. Good sailing to all.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail No	Helm	Crew	Club	R1	R2	R3	Pts
1	14132	Sam Watson	Matt Birks	NAN	1	1	2	2
2	14206	John Telford	Jack Telford	Bassenthwaite	2	3	1	3
3	14040	Pete Thoms	Dawn Frost	NAN	4	2	DNS	6
4	13948	John Bate	Kate Bate	NAN	3	4	DNS	7
5	14072	Darrell Sleep	Charles Saunders	Staunton Harold	12	5	4	9
6	13263	Keith Budden	en Roberts	Trimpley	8	8	3	11
7	13554	Dave Edwards	Chris Yates	NAN	9	6	6	12
8	13440	Joe Bellingham	Ian Bellingham	NAN	5	7	7	12
9	13975	Simon Fletcher	John Cookson	Trimpley	11	10	5	15
10	13868	Oliver Dumbleton	Harriet Dumbleton	NAN	6	9	DNS	15
11	13555	Richard Binns	Jim Grant	NAN	10	12	8	18
12	8764	David Beechey	Ian Patterson	Trimpley	7	13	DNF	20
13	13810	John McDonald	Jo McDonald	NAN	13	11	DNF	24