North Zone Topper Champs at Tees and Hartlepool Yacht Club

by Jon Emmett 11 Feb 2002 07:32 GMT

Photos©: Jon Emmett

On the 10th of February the North Zone Topper Squad raced a three race series at Tees and Hartlepool Yacht Club. With two races to count there were only a few points separating the top six places. There was also added pressure as this was the indicator for the selection of the Eric Twiname team to represent the North Zone. The team will be announced next month.

With a front moving in from the west it was always going to get breezy later in the day so the races were kept to one hour (45 minutes for the leader) and were sailed back to back. The course was a triangle, sausage with a short beat to the finish line.

Race one started in ten to twelve knots and an extremely port biased start line. Stephen Whitfield made the best start, comfortably crossing the fleet and held a commanding lead up the first beat. Whitfield couldn’t maintain his lead and eventually slipped to fifth place, his best result of the series.

William Crossley stamped his authority on the event by taking over the lead up the second beat and comfortably pulling away from the fleet. Meanwhile Sam Worsley was on the charge, pushing his way through to second. James Lewis never finished out of the top three all day and made a respectable start with a third. Graham Rome was the most consistent performer of the day, scoring a fourth.

Race two saw the return of Fiona Hamilton who had to sit out of race one due to her mast snapping. The breeze started to build up to fourteen to sixteen knots and a short chop.

Once again Crossley was showing good speed. This time a better start allowed him to reach mark one in pole position and from there control the race. However in the building breeze Lewis was showing good upwind speed and didn’t allow Crossley to pull away. Top girl Hamilton pulled through to secure third place. Once again Rowe scored a fourth, with fifth place going to George Sampson who had a poor first race.

With the meeting already won by Crossley, the fight was now for the lesser places. Crossley was too keen at start time and was scored OSC, but he still led round mark one. However this time he was very closely followed by Lewis who overtook him on the first reach. Hamilton followed tightly behind in third.

The second half of the race saw the breeze pick up to twenty-four knots which caused several swims, especially on the downwind legs. Lewis however revelled in the conditions and pulled away from Hamilton and Crossley who were still fighting it out. Hamilton eventually won the fight for second and Crossley retired.

Sampson who was enjoying the strong wind scored a third, with Becky Love taking fourth place. Lowe was forced to take fifth. The final result saw Crossley, Lewis and Hamilton finishing in their positions from race two, whilst Worsley, Sampson and Rome were tied on points, with the split being made on most firsts procedure.

Overall Results:

Pos	Helm	Pts
1st	William Crossley	2
2nd	James Lewis	3
3rd	Fiona Hamilton	5
4th	Sam Worsley	8
5th	George Sampson	8
6th	Graham Rome	8