Comet Open at Staunton Harold Sailing Club

Staunton Harold Comet Open © Matt Smith

The final Comet Open of the year was held on a sunny, chilly day with good westerly wind forecast. It was a joint event with 7 Solos. As well as Midland based helms, it was good to see other visitors from South Wales, Reading, Bristol and Devon. There were seven home boats, twelve visitors and it was good to see four ladies on the water.

In race 1 the line had a heavily port biased line as the wind was shifting a lot and it was best to tack as soon as possible.This course had 3 beats, 2 reaches and a long run. Nigel Austin 875 (Cransley) was first to the windward mark closely followed by home sailor Alan Bennett 126. Close behind were Ben Palmer 597 (Baltic Wharf Bristol), Eddie Pope 377 (Ogston Derbyshire) and Dave Turtle 815 (Shustoke).

Alan managed to get past Nigel at the second windward mark going onto the long run. Dave worked his way through and was on the tail of Alan going down the run on the second lap, managing to get past him at the end. These two pulled away with Eddie managing a good 3rd and Nigel 4th. Nigel Fern (SHSC) got a great result in 7th with which he was highly delighted! The wind was a lovely F3 with F4 gusts so planing was occurring!

Staunton Harold Comet Open - photo © Matt Smith

Race 2 after lunch had 2 beats, 2 reaches and a long run. The temperature had gone up as had the wind F3.2 and gusts F4.3 generally. Chris Robinson 867 (Burghfield) was first to the windward mark followed by Alan, and this held for the first half of the race. During the second half of the race what was a long beat turned into a fetch with a strength drop. Boats behind, more by luck than judgement, were able to sail around the 2 leaders. Chris held on to second, Eddie won with Dave third, then Ben, Nigel and Alan.

There were 4 boats who could win the event going into the last race. The wind went up a notch now to F3.2 to F4.7 with many sailors deciding to retire and pack up early for their trip home.

The course stayed the same with very close racing between Dave, Eddie and Chris with them finishing in that order, which happened to be the same as the overall result! Ben was 4th, Nigel 5th, Becky Priest 6th, and Alan 7th.

A good day was had by all so thanks to the club, race team, catering, safety and Matt Smith for the pictures.

Overall Results: