the club's racing calendar and this year four teams competed for the trophy.
The Juniors Team, last years winners, took on the Solos, Lasers and GPs.
The planned early start was postponed while everyone waited for the wind to
fill in. By 11.30am there was an acceptable Force 2 sufficient to start the first
race. At the third attempt the race finally got underway. The Lasers and the
Juniors did battle with the Lasers finishing with a convincing win. The second
race saw another victory for the Lasers over the Solos. Race Three saw victory
for the GPs over the Solos.
Race Four was crucial for the Lasers and the GPs. With both teams undefeated,
whoever won this race was likely to win the whole event. It was a very close-run
race with the final result going to the Lasers by a very narrow margin.
With first place now 'in the bag' for the Lasers, races 5 and 6 would determine
which teams would finish 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
In Race 5 the Solos beat the Juniors and in Race 6 the GPs beat the Juniors too.
The final result was:
4th Juniors, 3rd Solos, 2nd GPs, 1st Lasers
The event went very smoothly and finished just before the wind disappeared.
Special thanks to Peter Cowell who suggested that the rescue boat was used to
ferry out teams due to compete as each race came to an end. This scheme saved a
great deal of time between races and the whole event was truly run 'back to back'.
Another huge help was the provision of a full-time AOD. Many thanks to
Geoff King who proved to be a very able and efficient AOD, to Tim Davies for
ensuring all the racing GPs were in full working order and to Mary Blake for
running the galley.
The winning Laser team was:
Richard Coates, John Kingsley, Richard Wilmot, Richard Woods,
John Dickinson, Dave Allen.
Peter Widdowson