National 12 Open at Yorkshire Dales

21^st July 2008

We arrived to typical Grimwith greeting of white horses and sunshine.  Nine 12’s turned out ready and raring to go.

The first race began having already lost two of the 12’s due to gear failings! The order was shaken up on the way to the first mark as Philip David with Caroline Clarke and Howard Chadwick with Helen Nicholson headed to the wrong mark. David recovered from this detour only to then go the wrong way past the club mark. This left Mark and Emma Simpson in first then Neil and Katie McInnes and Chadwick in second and third. However David recovered from these setbacks to come speedily up through the fleet and into second only to fall victim to the fatal last gybe which claimed him and Simon Moss and David Clarke as they were being lapped and also McInnes’s who managed to just escape after a wobble and a fill up.  Final positions for this race were Simpson, McInnes and then Chadwick.

For the second race everyone launched into a nice squall which made the start interesting! However by the time the fleet rounded the first mark it had eased. Now with everyone sailing the correct course there was a close battle between David and Simpson for first place but the Simpson’s prevailed again in their Big Issue to get first. Meanwhile this left a local battle between the Yeadon sailors of Chadwick, McInnes and John and Alison Cheetham, until the Cheethams worked out how to make their Numinous fly and disappeared off to chase the lead two.

Conditions blew up for the start of the third race again but this time they did not ease. Simpson decided to sit this one out having two wins already. The McInnes’s lead round the first mark but David soon got ahead.  They chased each other for most of the lap and during some synchronised fast Baggy reaching, David caught a wave wrong and was in. The race had now turned in to a survival race with hard beats and flat out reaches which the race officer kept thankfully short with the McInnes’s winning it, Chadwick second and David in third. The Cheethams had to be rescued after being helped over by one of the club training boats at the leeward mark.

Thanks to Yorkshire Dales for hosting the event and Neil Spink, the OOD for the day and the rescue crews for running a  good event

YouTube videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EevCvUtgJZo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJNuox54Nzc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJodKrSYgWE

Overall results

1^st         3472   Mark and Emma Simpson

2^nd        3216   Neil and Katie McInnes

3^rd         3356   Howard Chadwick and Helen Nicholson

4^th         3217   Philip David and Caroline Clark

5^th         2255   Tim Gatti and Tace Morgan

6^th         3468   John and Allison Cheetham