Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club Wednesday Evening Race

Doug and Gail Pattison amongst 100 boats as Chew Valley Lake sailors celebrate the mid-summer festival during the Wednesday Evening Race © Errol Edwards

100 boats compete

Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club celebrated the mid summer festival with a Bar B Que on what proved a great evening. Sunshine, 10-12 knots of breeze and the first Wednesday Evening race where the number of entrants reached the 100 mark. This follows a number of evenings where the turnout has exceeded 90. This must be one of the most popular race series in the country. Spanning 18 weeks (10 to count) there have been 187 entrants across the 3 fleets (Fast Handicap, Lasers and Slow Handicap) so far and after 10 races there have been 85 competitors who have sailed 5 races or more.

The turnout this Wednesday was achieved despite the celebrations that followed England painful win at the world cup, Wimbledon and the start of the Glastonbury festival down the road. Many of the members consider this to be the unofficial club championship and it has been hotly contested over the last 40 years or so.

On this Evening Peter Sherwin (of Laser Grand Master National Champion Fame) was race officer and set a great course and ran the evening meticulously. In the Fast Handicap fleet the RS800 sailed by Ralph Singleton and Ari Liddell lead off the line closely followed by Chris Goldhawk (in a Musto Skiff rather than a Solo), Derian Scott in the Girl Power Fireball (crewed by Marisa Foster) and Father and Son combo Peter and Thomas Rose in the Scorpion. In the end the broader reaches suited the skiffs and the final result s aw Ralph take victory from Chris.

In the Lasers the newly crowned CVLSC Laser Open Champion Steve Smith took the lead and dominated the race winning from Adrian Kerr and Cameron Scott. Cameron is one of the up and coming Juniors in the fleet and defeated his nearest youth rivals Rich Cumpsty and Andrew Rose.

In the Slow Handicap fleet which has been dominated by the Solo fleet this year (sailing off a slight more favourable handicap than last year) Tim and Finn Johnson sailing an RS Feva took th e bullet from John Smalley and Alan Coventry both sailing Solos. Finn, who is only 6 deputised for his 8 year old brother Jack who has recently come back from helping Dad to 5th at the Feva Nationals.

Wednesday’s results are below with the series results to be found on the recently revamped CVLSC website. The big question amongst the competitors is who will dare go on holiday and miss a race in this hotly contested series!

The competitors finished the evening off with a great Bar B Que provi ded by our Caterers, Stoneground and plenty of Wadworths 6x ably poured by recent Solo covert and club stalwart George Simpkins. A special prize giving will be held next Wednesday to award the Buddy team prizes for the evening. A special thank you again to Peter , Julian , Claire, Sarah and Phil who ran the evening brilliantly.

CVLSC is clearly the place to be on a sunny summer’s Wednesday evening and we wait to see if any other clubs can match this great turnout!

Overall Results: