Early Points Series at Delph Sailing Club

Early Points Series at Delph Sailing Club © Pete Webster

By any measure the start of the 2026 sailing season at Delph Sailing Club has been a spectacular success, which is not surprising considering we have had nearly 80 new members so far this year as the high quality racing at the club continues to attract sailors from all across the country.

With 42 boats out for our ILCA & Youth open, the club hosting the Miracle Northern and Youth championships and then the North West Junior and Youth Travelers all having taken place across the the past 5 weeks, the new till system in the 5 star rated bar and galley has taken a welcome hammering with some of the profits having already been reinvested in a modernised hot water system to keep the pressure up in the showers for all of our sailors.

But it's the pressure in the Sunday club racing that has everybody talking at the moment, especially in the Early Points series which reached a dramatic finale on Sunday.

Across the series there were nearly 70 entries across the 3 flights (Fast & Slow handicap plus ILCA), which saw lots of switching of rigs as well as helms and crews as the club is now a mecca for double handed sailing particularly its highly competitive Miracle, Fireball and RS200 fleets.

In the fast handicap fleet (23 entries) the honours went to Matt Sharman and his son Daniel in their RS200 edging out Ian Oldbury in his Fireball. Finishing a fabulous 3rd was the junior partnership of Millie Hayfield and Poppy Haslam in their RS200, 2 of the many talented cadets the club has at its disposal. Matt also took the honour of finishing 9th from 23 in his Phantom with only talent academy member Will Taylor having more entries having helmed 3 different boats across the series. Will also finished 3rd at Saturdays ILCA open at Blackpool and Fleetwood yacht club.

But at the top of the slow fleet (30 entries), taking a break from her overflowing training intray, was our training principal Karen Taylor in her solo. Just behind her was William Webster in his Topper 4.2, an incredible achievement for someone who only started sailing last year. William clearly has talent as he also finished top under 14 boy in his first travelers event away from his home club at Hollingworth.

Other notable results from our cadets were Oliver Sharman who finished 4th in his Tera, Andrew Critchley was 6th in his Topper and Evie Pickles, who has already won her age category twice this season in the Junior Travellers finished both 7th & 8th in her tera, having changed rigs mid series. Rowan Smith completed the top 10 in his Topper. So many promising young sailors.

In the Ilca fleet (16 entries), Billy Morris just missed out to David Gamble on countback having been rather busy in Largs on Sunday winning their One design Regatta. In third was our incredibly busy results secretary, Gordon Riddell, who chose to spend his Sunday representing the club on the Northern Grand Prix circuit at Redesmere where he is currently 2nd from 74 after 4 events. Then only just behind the boys was our star sailor Ava Harris-Scott who will be representing the club at the ILCA4 world championships this summer in Denmark. What an incredible opportunity!

With bad weather affecting the early weekends of the series and many club members out on the road representing the club at regattas or sitting their GCSE and A-levels, it surely won't be long before the clubs self imposed limit of 50 boats for club racing gets tested but Delph is never closed to new members, and after a very successful open day we have had to stretch our cadets club out of over 2 evenings such is the demands on this RYA Pathway club.

The Summer points series starts on Sunday 7th June.

Overall Results: