Frampton vintage open meeting

 
On Saturday 4th July, Frampton on Severn Sailing Club were host to seven Vintage National 12’s competing in their fourth event of the 2009 season. Competitors had travelled from Yorkshire, Cheshire, Nottingham and Portishead to join the two FOSSC vintage 12’s. It was a sunny day with a light south/south easterly wind, that strengthened to ‘just planning’ conditions by the third race. 
 
The vintage section of the National 12 class holds a total of 7 events during the year. Three of these are sailed to the ‘Derwent handicap’ because the older boats (ones with ribs every four inches and cast iron steel centre plates are much slower than later vintage 12’s particularly improved boats). The first race is sailed as a standard race and each boat has its lap time recorded during the race. The second race is then sailed as a pursuit race with each competitor allocated a personal handicap chosen to try and get all boats to finish at the same time. For ease each handicap is rounded to the nearest thirty seconds. The third race is also sailed as a pursuit race with handicaps corrected based on the previous race. This handicapping does also tend to level the fleet because it not only covers boat speed but also the competitors ability, however it can give some exciting finishes as a majority of the fleet race for the line at the same time. Its just for fun, so if you have a Vintage N12 why not attend?
 
Race 1, began in light winds, Paul Turner and Nick Williams closely followed by Brian Herring and Ros Stevenson leading the fleet round the first lap. During this lap the wind swung more easterly and the large trees near the cottage created a wing shadow across the course making the rounding near white difficult. This had a great influence on the race, because if you could get to white, round the mark and exit whilst maintaining some boat speed you did well. The race leader did change as a result and Brian Kitching and Sue Beynon managed to take the lead for a lap before being passed. The race was won by Paul Turner and Nick Williams second was Brian Herring and Ros Stevenson.

 
The handicaps were assigned during lunch. Two boats were given a one minute handicap and four boats a two minute handicap.
 
Race 2, first boat away was Tim Gatti and Jane Beynon (in light airs his Proctor Mark 12 tends to stick) and in the strengthening wind, he was going well. After a minute, the next two started, surprisingly only one of the four boats were on the start line for the two minute handicap, an advantage Brian Kitching managed to keep for the whole race. Tim Gatti and Jane Beynon won the race with Brian Kitching and Sue Beynon second and John Kilgour and Edward Kilgour came third.
 
With a strengthening wind the handicaps were re adjusted, during this time the fleet were able to plane during the gusts, it was good fun!
 
Race 3, in this race boats started with handicaps of up to four minutes. All the lighter crew weights found the boats a bit of a handful with wing being spilled in the gusts. In this race Howard Chadwick and Helen Nicholson managed to take the lead and stay ahead of Brian Herring and Ros Stevenson and the rest of the fleet
 
Overall Paul Turner and Nick Williams won the open full results are below. The fleet would like to thank our race officer Keith Hill and his team for successfully running he races and providing rescue.

Overall results