Musto Skiffs in the 2022 Ovington Inlands at Grafham Water Sailing Club

Dan Trotter in the Musto Skiffs during the Ovington Inlands at Grafham © Paul Sanwell / OPP

The quick summary of the Musto Skiff inlands is that Pete Greenhalgh won, based on a dominant display in the bright and very breezy conditions of Saturday (Easterly wind, 20-25 kts). This confident and rust-free performance gave him a comfortable buffer over the chasing pack that allowed him to take victory from a consistent Andy Tarboton despite a difficult Sunday in very shifty and variable lighter wind.

Pete Greenhalgh in the Musto Skiffs during the Ovington Inlands at Grafham - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

The detail is that this was a fantastic season-opening event for 27 sailors emerging from a stormy winter of boat-park hibernation and coming out blinking into the sunshine of a beautiful weekend in Cambridgeshire.

Key Highlights:

• Everyone swam at least once on Saturday (even Pete Greenhalgh, although he still managed to win all 4 races). I personally capsized in every race and was still in 5th place overnight!
• It was nice for the fleet to celebrate with Serega Samus @toofittobeold as he turned 60 at the event. This sextengarian is the only Musto Skiff sailor (or sailor of any class that I know of) who is capable of physical challenges, such as flying superman burpees, you can follow his exploits on YouTube. Anyway, he became an official 'Legend' on Saturday (Legend is the aptly named over-60 Musto Skiff age-category).
• Guy Rivington sailed a brilliant race on Sunday to score his maiden victory at an Open Meeting.
• It was a pleasure to sail on the same course as the 505 fleet who all showed a deep understanding of how difficult it is to steer and control a Musto Skiff downwind in 25 knot gusts, when you can't see anything in front of you (they gave us a pretty wide berth). Of note: the top four 505s all included a top current or former Musto sailor in the boat.

Andy Tarboton in the Musto Skiffs during the Ovington Inlands at Grafham - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Thanks to Grafham Water Sailing Club and their race team who put on a great event, with a very quick turnaround of races. Inland sailing at its best.

The lucky few are now off to Palma for some warm weather training and the Princess Sofía Regatta. The rest of us will try and ignore the overwhelming FOMO as we train hard for the next domestic event, which is at Stokes Bay Open on 23/24 April.

Overall Results:

Dan Vincent in the Musto Skiffs during the Ovington Inlands at Grafham - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP