8th Gill Easter Egg and Optimist Regatta at Grafham Water Sailing Club

Sunny weather and light winds at the Gill Easter Egg event at Grafham Water © Paul Sanwell / OPP

While the older Optimist sailors had headed off to events on the continent, the younger and less experienced sailors gathered at Grafham Water for the annual Easter Egg regatta where they were joined by a youth handicap fleet for 2 days of racing. As usual the event was run less formally than others and featured on the water coaching.

Good Friday featured a light and fitful breeze (although beautiful weather for the parents sunning themselves and eating ice creams on the bank) that caused a long postponement ashore. Finally it appeared to settle and a race course was rapidly set up whilst the fleets launched, only for the wind to go round in circles as soon as the first warning flag was displayed.

The resulting running start proved no problem for these young sailors and the race was on! Much to their delight, although the Optimists started 4 minutes behind the ILCA 6 and other assorted boats of the handicap fleet, they actually overtook most of them before the end. The wind still refused to settle, so racing was abandoned for the day, and everyone's skateboarding and touch rugby skills were honed.

Tight racing in the Optimist fleet at the Gill Easter Egg event at Grafham Water - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Day 2 gave a sunshine and a superb breeze of 6-10kt with a steady mean all day. Four races were sailed.

The Optimists were extremely slick on the start line, probably as a result of the three-day training camp which had taken place at Grafham Water immediately before the Easter Egg event. Everyone showed off the skills which they'd learnt from Steve Irish and his team! The Oppies showed that they were no slouches on the start line, with Will Mears getting a special mention from the committee boat for his pre-start boat handling.

It was a fierce battle all the way to the finish, with places changing all the time in the shifty conditions. The Easter Egg, and main fleet, was won by Will Mears (Corinthian Otters), with local Grafham Water SC sailor Jacob Jull coming second and Noah Mathers (Burnham SC) third, making it a clean sweep for the Easties!

Ruby Coster won the Optimist Regatta fleet at the Grafham Water Easter Egg event - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

The winner of regatta fleet was Ruby Coster from Royal Lymington YC (discarding a first with a perfect score line), with James Pipe (Royal Harwich YC) second and Darcy O'Donnell (Royal Southern YC) third. Everyone came off the water smiling and had a great time, making new friends over the event.

The handicap fleet whizzed around the course with much place changing amongst the ILCA 6 boats. However, Adele Burbidge tended to move to the front with very smooth technique as the wind shifted around, and won three of the four races. Matthew Donley took second place.

Adele Burbidge won the handicap fleet at the Gill Easter Egg event held at Grafham Water - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Thomas Mathews, sailing a Topper 4.2 had a bit of a lonely time after the first lap of each race, but persevered to complete all four races. He then sailed off to the other end of the lake and joined the club Saturday afternoon racing! He was a most worthy endeavour prize winner.

At the prize-giving the podium places all received prizes generously provided by the club sponsor, Gill, and there were Easter Eggs for all (the RO discovered that you can just fit 50 Easter eggs into an MX5 boot).

For more photographs of the event please visit 8573832.tifmember.com

Will Mears took first place in the Optimist main fleet at the Gill Easter Egg event at Grafham Water - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Handicap fleet results:

Optimist main fleet results:

Optimist regatta fleet results: