Vintage 12s at Derwent

A small but competitive vintage fleet arrived at Derwent on the 30th August to find a pleasant gentle breeze and a high water level in complete contrast to the last two years when survival conditions were the order of the day.
As race one started the breeze was a steady 2-3 and racing was close!  Unfortunately Tim and Seb Gatti (fresh from Burton Week) sailed past the windward mark and dropped to the back before realising their mistake.  Brian Herring and Ros Stevenson sailed a close race with Howard Chadwick and Helen Nicholson, the two boats never being separated by more than 3-4 boat lengths.  Ian and Margaret Purkis sailed a solid race in their 4A but the marginal planing conditions favoured the newer boats and they lost ground on the reaches.  At the finish Howard crossed the line a mere half a boat length in front of Brian with Ian in 3rd and Tim still trying to recover from his mistake on the first lap in fourth place.

Race two started with the handicaps calculated by Towan Hancock from race one (adjusted to remove Tim’s detour).  This gave Tim and Ian a two minute start on Howard and Brian.  Brian and Ros broke through early and pulled into the lead on the last lap with Tim second Howard 3rd and Ian 4th but all boats finishing within a minute or so.

Race three started with a further tweak to the start positions with Ian off first followed a minute later by Tim and a minute after that by Brian and Howard, both of whom made poor starts although Howard did manage to squeeze Brian out at the starting mark! (sorry Brian).  Ian was still struggling, with newer boats planing away on the reaches. Howard managed to open out on the advantage gained over Brian at the start but Tim was not going to be caught this time and sailed well to maintain his lead over the fleet and finished first with Howard second. The whole fleet finished again in just over a minute after 4 laps showing that the Derwent System works well and balances up the differences in boat speed on the day.  With all three races to count Brian and Howard were tied so the tie break was used resulting in Howard and Helen successfully defending and winning the trophy for the event.

Overall results