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Vintage 12’s at the Wroxham Classic and Vintage Regatta
Brian Herring was the first 12 to drop out with a rigging problem quickly followed by Brian Wady who having not sailed a 12 for 30 years was launching his recently restored Procter 11a for the first time in 20 years into a baptism of fire which proved a little too much! Howard and Sarah Chadwick in 2266 battled on to finish 10 seconds behind the lead Merlin closely followed by Tim and Seb Gatti in his Proctor mark 12 N2255. Only nine of the 14 starters finished the race. The wind and rain continued in race two and the fleet reduced to seven boats. Brian Herring and Ros Steavenson took the lead on the first run from Howard and Sarah who then lost the main due to a rigging failure thus ending the race for them. Brian and Tim battled on to finish in that order but were so engrossed that they both failed to see the shorten course flag and completed an extra lap before noticing that everyone else had gone in! Ian Duffill had arrived to support having sold Sinner and ended up doing sterling service in the rescue boat all afternoon and Jonathan Reubin was also present but sailing his Merlin on the occasion. Sunday dawned bright and sunny but with even more wind than the Saturday as the further depleted fleet now down to five boats went out once again to do battle on the broad in race three. Howard and Sarah managed to make the first mark in the lead and hold to the position although pushed hard by Brian and Tim and at one point having to do a 360 having hit a mark with the boom end. At the final mark all the 12’s were in contention but unfortunately Brian and Ros filled letting Tim through into second place. The boats finished in that order but once again both Brian and Tim did an extra lap due to not hearing the finish bell in the windy conditions! Race four saw Tim and Seb Gatti make a fantastic start rounding first at the windward mark, Howard part filled at the gybe mark and was neck and neck with Brian on a dead run when Brian performed one of the more spectacular capsizes of the day by falling in backwards. Tim and Seb were clearly not going to be caught and sailed exceptionally well to finish first boat on the water showing that all the extra practice laps had paid off! In summary, great racing despite the hairy conditions and each of the three boats in contention had at least one race win, it doesn’t get much closer than that. To prove how extreme conditions were in the club racing only two white boats went out and one of these capsized and virtually sank which is almost unheard of as they are 20ft keelboats! The sun had also brought out plenty of spectators included in which were Andrew Dawson, Mike McNamara and ex Burton winners Mike Evans and John Royce. John was noted photographing the dangly pole on Triada (2266) and was considering how he could adapt the idea for his racing cruiser Meggie. The prizegiving as always was done by Jamie Campbell in his own
inimitable style with scant reference to the results on the water!
The crew prize was awarded to Sarah Chadwick for sailing all the races
with hardly a complaint, a task well above and beyond the call of
marital duty! The helms prize was awarded to Brian Herring because
he hadn’t won it before, he came the furthest and he provided the most
spectacular capsize of the day.
N12’s at Wroxham
Even the White Boat found it a tad windy!
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