Kestrel Scottish Championship 2026 at the Royal Tay Yacht Club
by Stewart Murdoch 15 Jun 19:53 BST
13-14 June 2026
Kestrel Scottish Championship at Royal Tay YC © Steve Smyth
Hosted by the Royal Tay Yacht Club over the weekend 13th/14th June the fleet of 10 entries was reduced to 9 before the first race. First casualty of the forecast gale.
With 37 knot gusts on the Tay Road Bridge on the Saturday morning it was decided not to keep the fleet hanging about and to cancel all sailing for the day. This allowed for a root and branch tuning session on 1579 which was sporting a replacement mast.
The social programme was not affected by the weather and Friday evening's Italian meal was followed by an excellent Indian carry-out curry for 32 people on Saturday in the clubhouse.
Sunday could hardly have been more of a contrast. There was a brief postponement to allow the northerly wind to fill-in before the start of the first race which was an all class handicap for the Lawson Cup. This trophy has a long history on the Tay. In the 70's it boasted a start line with over 100 boats of all shapes and sizes.
This year's event was a more modest affair, but no less competitive, with the final positions for the Kestrel class being decided the last beat of the four race series.
The Lawson Cup was a foretaste of what was to follow. It was a day of sunshine and very variable gusts. There were place changes on most legs. The fleet bunched downwind and if you missed a shift up-wind you would be punished. Beating across the flood tide, with significant wind shifts, made for tricky decisions and determined the final positions.
Stewart Murdoch and Mhairi Murdoch finished first, closely followed by Malcolm and Danielle Worsley and Paul Barnet and Didac Lizardo. All three teams held their finishing positions on handicap finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
After a lunch break classes had their own starts and three back to back races were sailed. There were incidents, it was incredibly close racing, in race three after two rounds there were still 6 boats overlapped at the leeward mark. There were 5 different leaders at different points. The early leaders were pulled back into the bunch.
It was Malcolm and Danielle who were the most consistent winning two races. Stewart and Mhairi were always close finishing on equal points, and both had to follow Paul Barnett and Didac Lizardo home in race three.
Malcolm and Danielle are the 2026 Scottish Kestrel Champions, worth winners after a very enjoyable day's sailing and a very close event.
Steve Worf and Dave Hearsum were presented with medals as the furthest travelled entrant having driven from from Southampton and Norfork to take part.
Sceighlan Tilson the newest member of the class was presented with a bottle of wine for completing every race in his first Kestrel travellers event.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Sail No | Boat Name | Helm | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | Pts |
|---|
| 1 | 1638 | Malcolm | Malcolm Worsley | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| 2 | 1648 | Pure Dead Seathing | Stewart Murdoch | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| 3 | 1633 | Purple | Paul Barnett | 3 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 13 |
| 4 | 1615 | The boat with no name | Alexander Bremner | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 18 |
| 5 | 1606 | Alison Jane | Angus Broadhurst | 6 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 19 |
| 6 | 1636 | Kestrel | Steven Worf | 5 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 20 |
| 7 | 1579 | Gaa Sands | Kenneth Scott Brown | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 28 |
| 8 | 1585 | Abertay | Sceighlan Tilson | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 32 |
| 9 | 1586 | Mayhem 2 | Katherine Lawlor | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 36 |