Burnham Week 2022 Day 1
by Sally Harbott 28 Aug 2022 07:48 BST
27 August - 3 September 2022
A fantastic start to the week in great weather with sunshine and building breezes. The dinghies had two races from the Burnham Sailing Club, the cruisers and keelboats starting from the Pile House.
Burnham Week is delighted to welcome back the Sandhopper fleet and also to see a strong ECOD fleet.
The first start of the Pile House racing was the Multihull Class. A competitive start with no recalls saw them head off down river turning over the foul tide towards their first mark which was Outer Crouch 3. Origami sailed by Nick Wood won on corrected time, Triassic second Nigel Stevens, with NRB, Julian Linton third.
Class One saw Slipstream, the Corby 25 helmed by Lizzie Brown, get a great pin end start up with Jackal, Digger Harden, Mike Schneidau and Richard Oram in the J92 also at that end of the line. The long foul tide beat gave Exile,Paul Trueman, and Jackal the longer boats the chance to get ahead but Slipstream and Mantra, Phillip Harbott's Aphrodite 101 beat them on corrected time with Slipstream taking the win.
Class Five the local handicap spinnaker class started next and were a little shy of the line but had a good strong fleet with the biggest boat being a Hanse, Helms Deep owned by Paul Hinkins getting a good start. Grace and Danger the SJ 27 owned by Stephen Gosling won with Richard Moore's Ophelia second and Eclipse the Maxi 1000 owned Daryl Mylroie third.
Class Six the non spinnaker local handicap class started next and again a little shy of the line on the gun. Lucy Lee sailed by Ian Keam George won on corrected time with Voyager Simon Sanders second. Yoffy were third.
The RS Elites then started their first race of the day and started mostly at the pin end. In race one Serious Moonlight Richard Bavin took the bullet with The Outlaw second.
Race two saw Richard Bavin take a second win leaving him in first overall after day one.
The Dragons started next and the race was won by Mark Wade in Avalanche with Ian Gray in Still Crazy second and Peter Marchant in Beauty and the Beast third.
The Squibs in their first race were very keen to start their week and had a general recall and went back for a second go. Mickey Wright led in 811 Spoof and took the win for race one with Squiggle, Jono Brown second and Dirty Sails, Jack Grogan, third. Race two saw another general recall as the ebb built. Jono Brown in Squiggle won with Lady Penelope second and Spoof third.
The Sandhoppers had a good start with Clara Mintern in Sea Phantom from Thorpe Bay Yacht Club taking the win with Blue Jacket, Richard Barnes the Stone sailor taking second, third was taken by Sand Star, William Daly also from Thorpe Bay who has returned to Burnham Week.
Five Ospreys sailed and Smoke Roger Blake won.
The RBOD fleet were also a little premature and caused the race officer to cal ll a general recall and to fly the U flag to help them get away cleanly. Amanda helmed by David Smith was leading at Redward. Amanda won with Simonetta, helmed by Freddie Pitcher second and Ariel, Philip Plumtree third.
Half way through the RBOD fleet were the ECODs and this made an amazing spectacle. The Dallimore designed RBODs celebrating their 90th anniversary this year rounded Redward alongside the Bermudan rigged ECODs, the rig set up which Norman Dallimore was also commissioned to design; these boats all look stunning still today and were enjoying phenomenally close racing. The two Bermudan rigged ECODs Gigi and Widgeon rounded the mark neck and neck and a few boat lengths behind the two gaff rigged boats were also enjoying incredibly close racing. It is great to see two locally designed and built classes of boats still racing hard and competitively on the river.
On corrected time Widgeon, sail number 2, won and is owned by Ian Wilson, Gigi, Ian Ruffles was second.
The 9 Phantoms raced down to number 7 first and then up to number 13 completing the course after rounding number 7 again coming inshore to the North Shore to finish the race.
The ILCAs started next and did a slightly shorter course rounding 7, Priors, 11 and West Quay completing two laps before finishing.
Next off was the RS200 class doing the same as the Laser ILCA class. Jo Tribe and Marcus took the bullet in both races leaving them leading overall after day one.
The second races were started as soon as possible and the boats raced the same course as the morning. The Phantom race saw close racing and the competitive fleet raced at close quarters until the finish.