Budworth Sailing Clubs's Junior GP14 team wins Southport 12 Hour Race
by Matthew Baird 8 Jul 2025 16:38 BST
28 June 2025
Budworth Sailing Clubs's Junior GP14 team wins Southport 12 Hour Race © Bill Kenyon
The conditions were looking strong for this year's Southport 12-hour race at Southport SC with 12-15 kts constant and gusts up to 30 kts which provided a real challenge for the junior and youth teams taking part.
At 8am, the wind started strong to offer a real challenge for Fin and Rosanna to start on time and win the West Wood Cup for the fastest first two laps. With a good lead set by Fin and Rosanna, George and Matthew set out and after a capsize and spinnaker pole substitution continued to put distance between us and second place.
A quick change over and Fin and Iago were ready to go out for the noon race (not nude as Iago edgily thought it was). After winning the noon race and a change of crew for Will, more distance was pushing our lead further ahead as the hours of training building up to the event stated to pay off.
On shore Johnny's van supplied an endless amount of sausage baps to fuel not only the racing, but also Bill Kenyon's walks around the lake as he was enthusiastically shouting encouragement and scrutinising every manoeuvre by the Budworth boat.
Rosanna and Matthew swapped in for the female helm race at 16:00 securing the Macdonald Ladies Trophy for Budworth.
Racing continued into the early evening with Fin and Will being swapped in for an hour before George and Iago took control during which they managed to break a spinnaker pole and gain a penalty before finally swapping out in the last minutes of the race for Fin and Rosanna to win the Final Fling for the last two laps.
Overall, it was an amazing day with great competition from teams with abilities from beginner to advanced. We're all super excited to defend our title next year and hope other junior and youth sailors can join us!