Weston Grand Slam at Weston Sailing Club Overall

The now well established Easter Grand Slam event attracted 126 boats to Weston Sailing Club, Southampton from around the country for the club’s annual flagship event. The event provided a range of wind conditions over the four days of the Easter bank holiday to test the best all-round sailors.

Friday provided lots of tide and warm sunshine and a light breeze contributing to with a busy Southampton Water combining to make difficult and choppy conditions.

The catamaran fleet saw a good mixture of cats turn out for the event. Friday saw the asymmetric cats take full advantage of the windward leeward course on both races, with the Inter17 of Matt Causon taking two firsts over the Spitfire of Grant Piggott and James Bird, with the Stealth John Pearce and Hugh Davis and Hobie Tiger of Simon Dean and Phil Goddard taking 3rd and 4th place respectively.

The Asymetrics provided the largest fleet with 42 boats and saw the Cherub of Andy Paterson and Una Mary Colclough take line honours with David Roe and Rachael White also in a Cherub taking second. The local sailors of Al and Jane Hall finished 3rd in their RS800. One of the four Musto Skiffs at the event saw Richard Stenhouse made the most of their between race practicing to take first place in the second race followed by the Hall’s in the RS800 and Paul and Caroline Fisk took third in an RS200, making the most of diminishing wind.

The fast fleet boats were dominated all weekend by an impressive display of sailing from Doug Pybus in a Moth. The conditions favoured Moth sailors and Martin Harrison took second. Steve Main took third in his RS600. It was the RS600 of Matt Humphreys that took first place in the second race with Doug Pybus in second and Steve Main repeating his performance in the first race.

The slow fleet was dominated for almost the whole event by the visiting National 12s of Graham Camm/Joe Ballantyne and Geoff Camm/Amelia Hall. The first day saw them each gain a win and a second place. In the morning race Mike Cooke and Debi Gibson from Notts County took third. The light wind dropping in the second race to favour yet another Natioanl12 of David and Josie Greening from Salcombe taking third. 17 Lasers allowed the race officer to separate their results and local sailors dominated the fleet with Ian Morgan taking two wins and Richard Horn taking two second places on the first day.

Saturday saw very similar conditions to Friday again favouring the light wind lovers. Matt Causon’s Inter17 gained another first place but loosing out to the Spitfire in the second race of the day. In the Asymetrics the battle of the Cherubs continued with Andy Paterson gaining the advantage over Gavin Simms and Simon Goodwin in the first race of the day. The fast fleet was lead by Matt Humphreys’ RS600 and Doug Pybus continued his consistency with second.

The top of the slow fleet finished as a copy of the first day with the National 12s of Graham Camm/Joe Ballantyne and Geoff Camm/Amelia Hall again taking a win and a second place each. In the Lasers Kieran Dix took a win as his best result of the weekend followed by Julius Mach and David Wolfe taking the next two places. David Wolfe followed up with a win in the remaining race of the day followed by Mach and Dix.

The Sunday weather showed a different picture as the cloud and a good F4 blowing across Southampton Water allowed the course to be changed from a windward leeward to a square that gave long reaches and short downwind legs for the reaching boats.

In the Cat fleet the Spitfire of Grant Piggott took line honours but was beaten on corrected time by the Hobie16 of James Power and Gillian Anley who found the conditions to their liking. The 6th race of the regatta saw Piggott again first on the water and again beaten by a Hobie16 but this time Chris Sprout and James Burke took the win.

The Asymetrics saw Gavin Simms take first place in the Cherub and David Roe finish second also in a Cherub. First place again eluded David Roe in the second race, this time beaten by Andy Paterson’s Cherub. The fast fleet saw Pybus win in his Moth and the Contender of Tony Burton take second place. The remaining race of the day saw the only general recall of the event. A last minute surge in a strong breeze from the boats collected at the pin end gave the race officer no choice. The second start at the end of the starting sequence saw a clean get-away and a one two from the RS600s of Steve Main and Matt Humphreys liking the heavy conditions.

The slow fleet saw the National 12s of Graham Camm, Geoff Camm and Mike Cooke take the first three places. In the second race Graham and Geoff exchanged places and Mike Cooke again followed in third. The Laser saw Richard Horn take two firsts, Ian Morgan two seconds and Paul Cooper two thirds in a consistent day for the top Laser sailors in the fleet.

Monday presented much the same conditions as Sunday and left the Inter17 of Causon and the Spitfire of Piggott battling out for victory, with every result crucial. The race officer laid another square course that favoured the spinnakerless Darts and Hobies. The Spitfire pulled out an impressive lead in both races to take two first places leaving the Inter17 to battle it out on the water with the Hurricane and Hobie16 further down the fleet. First place resulted in a points tie between the Spitfire and Inter17 giving overall victory to the Spitfire of Grant Piggott and James Bird on count back. This was an impressive display of sailing, having never been outside the top three all weekend.

Cherubs again continued to dominate the Asymetric fleet with a win for Robin Russell and second for David Roe and Rachael White in both races of the day handing event laurels to Roe. A quietly consistent performance from Richard Stenhouse gave him second in his Musto Skiff. The fast fleet was won in the morning by Matt Humphreys’ RS600 with Tony Burton’s Contender second. Local sailors Keith Paul and Steve Main took first and second in the final race of the regatta in their RS600 and Contender respectively. The fleet was won by Doug Pybus who secured his victory the confidence of not having to put his boat on the water on the final day.

The weekend’s pattern again continued in the slow fleet with Graham and Geoff Camm again taking a first and a second each to leave National 12s in the first four places of the slow fleet. Graham Camm and Zoe Ballantyne took the most slender of victories from the second National 12 of Geoff Camm and Amelia Hall with a large gap to Mike Cooke and Debi Gibson in third.

In the Laser fleet James Ross took the first win of the day and Paul Cooper took second. Cooper improved in the second race to win ahead of James Roy. Ian Morgan was able to make the most of good results early in the regatta and win overall with Richard Horn in second.

Asymmetric Report by Jim Champ:

The Asymmetric class attracted a varied fleet, with 13 different classes amongst the 44 boats. Most numerous were B14s (9) followed by Cherubs, Laser 4000s, Laser 5000s (5 each) and Musto Skiffs (4). The Cherub fleet was particularly strong, featuring the last 3 years National Champions. The first day also featured some RS200s, who later joined the slow fleet! Somwhat controversially the Club had elected to change the NOR, which meant that Monday, instead of being a separate race which didn't count towards the series, as has always been the case in the past, became a normal race day with two races counting towards the series. This was to have a huge impact on the final results.

Winds throughout the weekend were quite variable in direction and strength, making tactics and shift picking quite as important as pure boat speed.

Day 1 saw the lightest breezes. The first race saw a Cherub 1,2, with Andrew Paterson and Una May Colclough winning from Dave Roe and Rachael White, followed by the RS800 of Al and Jane Hall, the B14 of Ian Praine and Pam Heritage, and A & R Smith 5th in a Laser 5000. The wind dropped some for the second race, which suited rich Stenhouse Musto Skiff, who lead home from the Halls, with Paul and Caroline Fisk 3rd in their RS200, Hugh and Helen Watson 4th in a L4000, and Tony Robertshaw's Int Canoe 5th.

Day 2 saw a little more breeze. Paterson's Cherub won the morning race, with Sarah Hughes and Alex Davies second in their RS400, and the Watson's 3rd. 4th was Gavin Sims and Simon Goodwin's brand new Cherub as seen at Sailboat, and 5th were Patrick Cunningham and Dominic Barker in another Cherub. The afternoon saw Rick Stenhouse's Musto Skiff take a win from Sims' and Paterson's and Roe's Cherubs and Tim Harrison and J Ratcliff 5th in a B14.

Sunday saw another nice breeze, but unfortunately the sun had gone. This didn't seem to stop the Cherubs, who took 1,2,3 with Sims leading Roe across the line, hotly pursued by newly arrived Cherub Champions Robin Russell and Will Lee. Stenhouse was 4th in the Musto skiff, and Harrison 5th in his B14 while Ian appears to have received some sort of Average points for this race and also scored 5. Race 2 was easily won by Paterson's Cherub from Roe, with Matt Searle and Rich bell 3rd in a B14, Harrison 4th, and 5th Glen Truswell and George Rice in a L5000. Prainer received average points for 5th again!

At this stage Paterson and Colclough were holding a handy lead for the series, but unfortunately had family commitments for the Monday, which would not have been a problem with the original NOR. They had a DNC for the Sunday morning race due to illness, so were now almost certainly out of the reckoning.

Monday saw just a little more breeze, which suited the remaining Cherubs, with Russell winning both Races and Roe second. Sims picked up a 3rd and a 4th, Stenhouse 4,5, Praine a 5th and 3rd in the last race went to A and E Edwards in their RS400.

Overall Dave Roe and Rachael White won the Asymmettric Class with a highly consistent but unspectacular series - they scored 5 seconds and a 4th. Second was Richard Stenhouse in his Musto Skiff, who won two races in lighter conditions, but tended to be beaten by the Cherubs when the wind got up. Gavin Sims and Simon Goodwin finished a good third in spite of occasional teething problems with their brand new Cherub. Sarah Hughes and Alex Davies finished 4th in their RS400, and 5th were Jason Kirk and Scott Dawson in a Laser 5000 in spite of scoring no result better than 7th. 6th, as a result of counting a DNC, were Paterson and Colclough. No less than 19 of the 45 entrants scored top 6 places in a very open series, although this was partly because of the number of sailors who were unable to do all 4 days of the event.

Overall Results:

More Information:

• Weston Sailing Club