Mirror Southern Traveller at Maidenhead Sailing Club
by Trevor Nicholls 25 May 2005 13:03 BST
22 May 2005
Action from the Mirror Southern Traveller at Maidenhead © Trevor Nicholls
FIRST THREE PLACES TAKEN BY BROTHERS
The lake at Maidenhead Sailing Club provided challenging conditions to the 13 boats entered, not so much due to the wind force of 10 – 15 knots, but the shifts of ± 30 degrees and the wind holes that trapped many a good sailor!
The event, based on three races with no discards, was won by the Hillhead team from the National Youth Squad Shaun Mason and Matthew Mason (70055), who were at the front throughout all three races. On only a few occasions were they near to being challenged by Sam Nicholls and Ed Nicholls (70216) of Maidenhead, who finished 2nd overall and Giles Strong and Piers Strong (69724) of Poole Yacht Club, who finished 3rd overall, all from the Southern Squad.
The third race proved to be the most exciting as the wind picked up with, the Strong brothers in 2nd place pushing the Mason brothers, but with the real battle being for third place being held between Shaun Hampton-Matthews for the 1st lap (69334 – Warsash), Simon Lovesey with son James in the 2nd lap (70154 – Warsash) and then Sam and Ed Nicholls (3rd lap) finally finishing in this place.
Fourth place was taken by Simon and James Lovesey, followed by a closely fought battle between single handed sailors Ron Vass and Kevin Hastings (59187 and 39752 – both from Maidenhead) who finished with equal points only to be settled as Vass got the better result in the last race, resulting in Vass taking 5th place and Hastings 6th. These were all closely followed in 7th place, and between in some races, by Tom Lovesey and Jeremy Williamson (70252 from Warsash / Papercourt).
Another single-hander battle was being fought closely behind between Shaun Hampton-Matthews (69334) and Jon Bonsor (78003), both from Warsash, which resulted in Shaun getting 8th place and Jon getting 9th place.
The rest of the fleet sailed well through difficult conditions, with light crew weights and rig problems, and resulting in the following places: Adam Meekings and Alex Watts (30056 – Maidenhead) 10th, Ceilidh Higgs and Jo Corrig (70335 - Herne Bay) 11th, Richard Hudson and Ben Cutler (58227 – Maidenhead) 12th and Jake Bonsar and Ed Hampton-Matthews (70003 – Warsash) in 13th place.
The event was organised by Maidenhead Sailing Club and the Mirror Class Association and was run as a coached open, with local coach Tom Rosoman providing excellent briefings and video supported debriefings, which not only helped the contestants greatly but managed to resolve a potentially difficult protest by a video walkthrough which resulted in all involved learning from the incident.