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
| Rank |
Class |
Sail No |
HelmName |
CrewName |
Club |
| 1st |
N12 Double Bottom |
3474 |
Jeremy Hartley |
Janessa Hartley |
Spinnaker |
| 2nd |
N12 Double Bottom |
3449 |
Steve Adshead |
Emily Wheeler |
Spinnaker |
| 3rd |
N12 Double Bottom |
3419 |
Matt Reid |
Kyla |
Spinnaker |
| 4th |
N12 Double Bottom |
3518 |
Phil Brown |
Dawn Brown |
Spinnaker |
Burton week
Organising an event