Sailingfast Wessex ILCA Open at South Cerney Sailing Club

Sailingfast Wessex ILCA Open at South Cerney © Helena Sadler

The final event in the Sailingfast sponsored Wessex ILCA Series took place on Saturday 19th October at South Cerney Sailing Club. Fortunately the date chosen meant the weather gods were friendly and despite heavy rain in the early morning the day turned out to be warm, quite sunny and generally a reasonable wind speed and from a favourable direction to make the most of the lake size.

Six home boats were joined by ten travellers - mostly from the other local Cotswolds Lakes (Whitefriars and Bowmoor) with a couple of travellers from further afield. Boats were washed down and refreshments and bacon (local butcher JGK of Royal Wootton Basset) butties to kick off the day. Jonny Stevenson was our PRO for the day and provided the welcome brief and a few minor changes to the SIs.

The fleet were pretty keen to get going and enjoying the breeze that started to build up. Jonny and team positioned our 'new' committee boat just off the headland to allow use of the dogleg part of the lake too. Marks were moved about a bit and the starting line too as the wind oscillated in its direction. The initial starting sequence began but then some confusion as an additional sound signal and some technical issues with the class flag meant a minor postponement. Finally race one was under way with a couple of newbies being caught out and returning. As this was my worst start of the day I couldn't clearly see who was leading at the front - however it was really, really close with home sailor Bruce Harper just pipping John Ling to the first place - a matter of a second or two on that final leg.

Race two there was quite a change of course with extra legs and allow some more tactical decision making. We all started cleanly and this time it was close up from with John Ling, myself and John Lapes all in close contention. John Ling pulled out a bit of a lead and we all stayed clear of the main fleet. Behind us there seemed to be more shouts and close up racing to be had with place changes on the extended course. John Ling first, John Lapes second and myself in third. After finishing the fleet came in for a quick mega pastie break (courtesy of JGK again), hot drinks and local apples. After some lively discussion of the results from the first couple of races Jonny was keen to get the fleet back out again.

Race three and another change of course - luckily the fleet had an excellent lead boat driven by Malcolm James to show us the way each time the course changed. The wind was shifting a bit and the start was split with the majority still opting for the committee boat end - however a few of us opted for a higher risk strategy at the port pin end. Timing was crucial and I managed to start and make the 1st mark in first place without having to tack up. Meanwhile the two Johns were in hot pursuit behind me and came past after a couple of legs. This order was maintained until the penultimate leg when some filling in breeze allowed Mike Dyer to slip past into third place - otherwise the same top results for race 2.

Race four had to have a significant repositioning of the start line and change of course which Jonny and team quickly organised. I managed to get off to a good start once again and had John Ling and Mike Dyer this time to battle with and pretty much the same result with John leading, then Mike, then myself but there was a surprise in the end results as home Radial boat sailed by Po Wong came out the winner by four seconds. Once again there was close racing and changes of places on a quite challenging course.

On returning to shore the fleet enjoyed some home made apple cake, local lardy cake with hot drinks. Unfortunately Jonny had to leave early so the prize-giving was delivered by myself (busy day with the sailing and running galley too) and based on the separated rig sizes.

John Ling thanked all those for attending, running and supporting the event and sponsorship by Sailingfast - it was a really great day's sailing with many events having to be cancelled on the following day due to the storms.

Podium Winners:

ILCA 4 - 1st - Daniel Sadler (Whitefriars SC)

ILCA 6 - 1st - Toby Owen (first Junior) - (Whitefriars SC)
ILCA 6 - 2nd - Po Wong (first Open event) (SCSC)
ILCA 6 - 3rd - Sarah Rendell (first lady in her first Open event) - (SCSC)

ILCA 7 - 1st John Ling (Bartley SC)
ILCA 7 - 2nd John Lapes (Bristol Corinthian YC)
ILCA 7 - 3rd Mike Dyer (Bowmoor SC) - 3rd place equal points

Overall Results using SCSC ILCA Handicaps:

ILCA 7 - 1st John Ling (Bartley SC)
ILCA 7 - 2nd John Lapes (Bristol Corinthian YC)
ILCA 7 - 3rd Mike Dyer (Bowmoor SC) - 3rd place equal points
ILCA 7 - 4th Kean Gunton (SCSC) - first SCSC boat
ILCA 7 - 5th Bruce Harper (SCSC)
ILCA 6 - 6th Toby Owen (Whitefriars SC)
ILCA 7 - 7th Kevin Currier (SCSC)
ILCA 6 - 8th Po Wong (SCSC)
ILCA 7 - 9th Doug Roberts (Bowmoor SC)
ILCA 7 - 10th Ian Collins (SCSC)
ILCA 6 - 11th Sarah Rendell (SCSC) - 1st lady
ILCA 7 - 12th Edward Frith (Whitefriars SC)
ILCA 7 - 13th Martin Rendell (SCSC)
ILCA 4 - 14th Daniel Sadler (Whitefriars SC)
ILCA 7 - 15th Robert Owen (Whitefriars SC)
ILCA 7 - 16th Graham Royle (Bowmoor SC)