Contender open meeting at Castle Cove Sailing Club

Contender open meeting at Castle Cove © Richard Bowers

The last weekend in September saw Contenders gather for the ninth and penultimate open meeting of 2025 at a class favourite of Castle Cove Sailing Club at a shared event with the Ospreys.

The forecast was mixed, with breeze due on the Saturday, both with and without rain, and a Sunday ranging from 1-10 knots. With the usual warm welcome of a solid bacon roll and coffee 16 Contender sailors put the boats together in overcast, sometimes showery weather, but the breeze was up which should guarantee some smiles.

After the simplest of briefings, the cloud and rain had lifted as the competitors headed out into Portland Harbour, near the seawall on the eastern edge, with the RO already anchored, line set and ready to go. The breeze was southwesterly sweeping around and over Portland, which was going to provide a number of snakes, ladders and landmines meaning anything could happen.

Race one went off the line first time with a the bulk of the fleet heading towards the left side of the course, all the sea wall before tacking back and heading towards the mark positioned under Portland, there were some who decided that wasn't the right way and went out hard to the right, time would tell. Simon Mussell, who'd been out to the left was first round, followed by Stuart Jones, Ed Presley(of the right), Gary Langdown and James Spikesley in pretty short order.

The reaches were fairly tame compared to the last event but pumping was tricky to make efficient. Simon rounded the leeward mark first sheeting in and starting blast upwind again when his forestay decided to checkout and call it a day, his rig falling in a bizarre slow motion. The rest of us sheeted in and headed back to the top of the course wishing Si well. The race finished with Stuart fist, Ed second and James Third.

Race two started without pain and the same dilemma about the first beat, with the similar splits to the left and right. This time the left was favoured with the group of Stuart, Adrian Smith, Gary, James and Rob Smith rounding the mark before heading off down the reach, with gusts and shifts having a shakedown of the fleet the finishing order was Stuart, Ed and Adrian.

Race three saw Simon reappear after a quick running repair and another clean start, the fleet into the routine of going out to the left and leading back to the windward mark trying to pick some shifts on the way, with the same names rounding, albeit with Simon leading the way. The finish saw Simon lead from Stuart and Ed taking the third. After some amazing hosting and food by the galley team at the club sailors left to regroup for the Sunday which was likely to be a different sort of challenge.

Contender open meeting at Castle Cove - photo © Richard Bowers

Fortunately for all the forecast front had come through early and the breeze looked like it was starting to settle down into something sailable, but lighter. Once on the water the cloud broke, the sun came out and the Northerly starting to blow a bit harder, in patches. The start was in the south of the harbour with the windward mark not far from the Northern entrance, which could have been considered ambitious at the time, but the RO had it nailed on as the breeze continued to build.

Race four set off with more breeze visible out to the right with everyone fighting for a lane out, Adrian seemed to find the vein of breeze to speed away from the rest of the fleet and wasn't really seen again, followed by Ed and James, with Ed managing to edge it on the run to get the second.

Race 5 started in more breeze but with bigger patches, Stuart (I'm not quite sure how it happened) Jones finding his own personal breeze to disappear with Rob, Gary, James, Simon and Ed in hot pursuit. With a large game of snakes and ladders, Gary managed to get away with Ed and Simon fighting back and finishing Stuart, Garry and Ed edging simon out.

The sixth and final race started with another fight for air and the fastest route to the better breeze. This time Gary was blessed followed by Stuart, James and Ed. As the race progressed it tightened up with Gary just managing to hold off Stuart at the finish with James bringing in the third.

The overall results were a solid win by Stuart Jones, Ed Presley second and Garry Langdown third. A huge thank you to all at Castle Cove sailing club for what was a terrific event with fantastic race management and for looking after us so well on the shore.

Now onto the final event of the year, which is the Inland Championships at Rutland Water Sailing Club on the 11th and 12th of October. If you've got a Contender please bring it along.

Contender open meeting at Castle Cove - photo © Richard Bowers

Overall Results: