Guy Fawkes Pursuit Race at Leigh & Lowton Sailing Club

by Richard Catchpole 12 Nov 2021 09:57 GMT 7 November 2021

Leigh & Lowton SC restarted their annual Guy Fawkes Pursuit Race on Sunday 7th November, having had to cancel last year for Covid lockdown reasons. The forecast for the day was for a squally day with gusts of up to 30 knots - the reality did not disappoint. Many resisted the temptation to go afloat and of those that did, some were back ashore without troubling the start line, due to breakages or big swims!

The juniors were not deterred as they set off first, eight of them in Optimists, Teras and Toppers showing the adults the way to go. The start of the race was so gusty that the advantage the stronger winds should have brought was offset by having to manage their boats around the course.

The adults started with some Solos, then Streaker, Lasers, Albacore, Scorpion, GP14 and finally the Blaze and the asymmetric fleets.

In all the chaos that the wind brought for the first couple of laps, some struggled to find their way around the course and made some navigational errors. Then the wind abated and the race became a race at last, not survival.

The viewing spectators were debating who would win out - would it be Ben in his Optimist hanging on to his lead until he was overhauled on the last lap, or the battle between Steve and Paul in the Streaker/Radial combo who fought all the way round. It looked like it could have been Mark in the Blaze towards the end or Alastair and Helen in their RS200, but the clock ran out for them and they couldn't reign in Steve who held out to win by a minute or so.

Thanks to the usual OOD team of Howard Green & co for another great event.

Overall Results:

Pos	Class	Sail No	Helm	Crew	R1
1	Streaker	1942	Steve Blackburn		1
2	Blaze	760	Mark Fearnley		2
3	RS 200	1509	Alistair Norris	Helen Norris	3
4	Laser Radial	193713	Paul Heath		4
5	Wayfarer	10747	Louise Mckeand	Nigel Hall	5
6	Optimist	5500	Ben Welfare		6
7	Laser Radial	73	Glyn Purnell		7
8	Solo	5909	Andy Fox		8
9	Topper	33701	Lewis Bacon		9
10	Albacore	8233	Mike Banner	Mark Atherton	10
11	Solo	5272	Dave Kelsall		11
12	Topper	47026	Paul Roberts		12
13	Solo	5845	Stuart Van Den Hoek		13
14	Lark	2492	Paul Graham	Ollie Thornton	14
15	Wayfarer	10700	Christopher Chadwick	Michael Chadwick	15
16	Optimist	5243	Alex Welfare		16
17	Scorpion	2031	Peter Crowther	Dave Thompson	17
18	Blaze	671	Chas Coghill		DNF
18	Blaze	684	Martin Clift		DNF
18	Blaze	861	Mark Cuthbert		DNF
18	Enterprise	22706	Darryl Bedford	Paul Bedford	DNF
18	Laser Radial	208745	Ross Southwell		DNF
18	RS 400	947	Harvey Jackson	Chris Roberts	DNF
18	RS 400	1396	Mark Dingsdale	Ness Evans	DNF
18	RS Aero 7	1118	Gareth Williams		DNF
18	RS Aero 7	1700	Steve Norris		DNF
18	RS Aero 7	2324	Mike Baldwin		DNF
18	RS Aero 7	3314	Julia West		DNF
18	RS Tera Sport	1009	Jasmine Perry		DNF
18	Solo	5120	Andrew Roberts		DNF
18	Solo	5350	Chris Helsby		DNF
18	Solo	5849	Darren Nield		DNF
18	Wayfarer	10049	Fred Duran	James Duran	DNF