Spinnaker open meeting

Blashford Lake, Ringwood
National 12 Open Meeting
Sunday 20th June 2010 
 
Sunday morning dawned sunny with a reasonable North Easterly breeze, sadly family illness had kept away a few old favourites but nonetheless a fleet of twelve boats assembled to contest the three scheduled races.  Even before the racing commenced the first prize of the day was awarded, with Nick and Gerald Copsey taking the award for furthest travelled making the journey from Ely with a distance of over 180 miles – that's keen!
 
Race 1. Force 2 with occasional hiking in the gusts, but with rather too much enthusiasm for that perfect start a gaggle of boats found themselves OCS, too many to identify so a general recall followed.  Second time around, Jeremy and Janessa Hartley started near the pin end of the line and led to the windward mark with others including Steve Adshead and Emily Wheeler in their T foil equipped Chapter in very close pursuit.  Jeremy & Janessa maintained the lead through the lee of the island & subsequent beat before navigational confusion allowed Steve and Emily past on the run to the leeward mark.  In light/medium winds with plenty of manoeuvres the foil did not seem to slow Steve and Emily who maintained good speed both upwind and down.  Matt Reid and Kyla Wilson-Harris in their Feeling Foolish closed a gap on the leading boats with these 3 contending the lead for a time.  Eventually a gust near the windward mark allowed Jeremy and Janessa to escape the others to take the win, with Matt and Kyla second, Steve and Emily third. 
 
Race 2. After a short break for lunch sunblock was certainly the order of the day, with the wind becoming a bit patchy, familiar challenges for the home boats!  Despite this team Spinnaker boats seemed to have a death wish, after a postponed start the Hartley’s and Phil & Dawn Brown in their Paradigm 2 both misread the flags and started one minute too early, returning just too late to start badly.  Steve Adsead was vying with visitor Nigel White in his Numinous on the first beat, but headed for the wrong mark whilst Nigel crewed by Jack Muldoon led the way for the first couple of legs.  Unfortunately Nigel was becalmed near the island allowing Steve and others to sniddle past.  As the race settled down Matt Reid and Jeremy Hartley picked their way to the front.  After a prolonged battle with several place changes Jeremy and Janessa took first, Steve and Emily second with Matt and Kyla third.
 
Race 3. Racing was back to back but Jeremy & Matt risked a pit stop ashore, missing the start by several minutes.  Jeremy returned to shore nervously checking the SI’s to confirm he had a discard, Matt and Kyla battled on, but could not catch Steve and Emily who led the race in increasing breeze to win the race & take second overall with Phil and Dawn Brown taking third place and fourth overall.
 
 
Spotted sitting on the terrace enjoying the racing and reading the Sunday papers was a certain prolific National 12 designer!  Bim Daser kindly agreed to present the prizes and afterward joined the fleet for afternoon tea and cakes.
 

Photo: R Flack                     

Overall results