Mum's Bucket random pairs team racing at the Royal Thames Yacht Club
by Jack Fenwick 4 Mar 13:40 GMT
Mum's Bucket random pairs team racing © Simon Winkley / Royal Thames YC
Random pairs team racing challenges the skills and adaptability of Royal Thames Yacht Club's top team racers.
With a good breeze forecast for the day but pretty unpleasant cold and rain, the six teams who had qualified for the final took to the water for the first race with some trepidation.
Despite the conditions though, it was full on racing from the very start, in a battle from the start to the finish. Murray Hampshire paired with Chris Eames finally taking the first win ahead of Alex Smallwood paired with Jon Redding. Undettered by the early loss, in race two, Smallwood, this time paired with Tiger Tellwright (who we're pleased to say was actually competing with his Mum) bounced back to tack the win.
Racing continued a pace with almost every race fought for the duration, even a 1-2 at mark one was not safe with the long run giving teams the chance to dig back in and many races were flipped several times before the finish line.
As the racing progressed, Alex Smallwood and Murray Hampshire were nosing out in front of the remaining pack, their ability to work well with a different skipper in each race helping them to secure a high number of race wins. The battle for third place however was heating up.
After 15 races, each team had completed ten races and there was a three way tie for third place with Jon Redding, Tiger Tellwright and Henry Arnold all on four wins with Chris Eames just one win behind on three.
The race committee pushed on towards the deadline, squeezing in another four races to decide who would take the final podium place. With each team now having completed an uneven number of races, it was down to percentage race wins who would take third place. Chris Eames and Jon Redding were tied on four race wins each with Redding ahead by just 2.3% to take fifth and Tiger Tellwright and Henry Arnold were tied on five races wins with Henry Arnold taking third place overall just 3.5% ahead of Tellwright.
The battle for first place was still fierce but by the end, Alex Smallwood was the clear winner with eleven race wins, two ahead of second placed Murray Hampshire on nine race wins.
This event marks the end of the club winter Team Racing programme but we are looking forward to hosting the National Two Boat Keelboat Team Racing Championship for the Carmela Cup in April and the inaugural Women's National Two Boat Keelboat Championship in June.