Contender Open at Weston Sailing Club

by Carl Tagoe 28 Jul 2023 14:18 BST 22-23 July 2023

Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Well, we had none of that, just lots of rain, copious amounts of wind, though some competitors did, going down the run and reaches, slide into the rock and roll genre.

Saturday it blew between 20 -35 knots. The gusts were "sid vicious" and accompanied by dramatic wind shifts. It was a day for lots of Muscle. And yes, Simon Mussell used his impressive upwind boat speed to great effect, clinching him the first two races. But he did not have it all his own way. Whilst Simon dragged raced, Graeme Willcox sniffed out the wind shifts and bagged himself the last race of the day, which had to be shortened as the race officer was worried that his nice fleet of boats could be pulverised by the wind.

Pulverised or not, the race officer set a brilliant trapezoidal course with long tight reaches. High speed stuff, which led to a few competitors having to wash out in the dinghy park, the hallmark of shame, "the hamble mud", and replace their seed drilled beloved burgees. Back to the racing, Ed Presley as far as I can tell decided for the first three races to reconcile himself with boredom. Within his own space time continuum, he must have watched Simon and Graeme battling it out in front, and looked behind with bemusement to see Stuart Jones and Carl Tagoe rotating around themselves like binary stars. Boredom yielded him a symmetry of three third places.

Tight point margins: Day two. Perfect weather - sun and a tad bit less wind and a lot more shifty than Saturday. This suited Graeme who took no prisoners and won the first two races. Over to Simon to win the last race which allowed him to win the series - no pressure. The wind had now got progressively lighter with more holes in it. The status quo had to change.

Carl Tagoe led the last race. However, a curse was placed upon him. Through complicated computation, Stuart was destined to write this report even though he now found himself stuck at the back of the fleet. Now on the run he saw Carl, lead boat on the beat, and past him; realising the paradigm had changed and with the demeanour of a curse, Stuart called out to Carl in a quiet and caring voice, "my son, if you win this race you have to do the write up".

Paralyzed with such fear, Carl made a mistake, at which time Graeme, now in second place, upped gear and passed through to win the last race and the regatta. Simon Mussell came overall second. Boring Ed, the person who did not want to play games, came third. In order of the curse, the binary stars came fourth and fifth respectively.

Those Weston Sailing Club boys and girls put on a fantastic on and off water venue. The fleet appreciated all their hard work. Many thanks again and again.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail No	Helm
1	695	Graeme Willcox
2	2420	Simon Mussell
3	2708	Ed Presley
4	2607	Carl Tagoe
5	2706	Stuart Jones
6	2383	David Davies
7	705	James Spikesley
8	2619	Mike Murley-Hughes
9	2449	Rob Smith
10	2661	Nick Curry
11	2751	Richard Buttner
12	2711	Duncan Ward
13	2484	Gary Langdown
14	2746	Simon Forbes
15	2729	Chris Howe
16	2423	Simon Dodds
17	2404	John Greenhalgh
17	2710	James Daniels
17	712	Rodger White
17	2702	Chris Boshier