Yorkshire Dales open meeting

Sunday 21st July
 
The heat wave broke overnight and we had our first rain and proper cloudy conditions for a couple of weeks. That didn’t seem to deter the fleet of Northern and Midland Twelve’s who turned up at Yorkshire Dales Sailing Club for the annual National 12 Open Meeting. A reasonable easterly wind gave the opportunity for the OOD to set a beat almost the length of the reservoir. It was a bit of a rush for Ian and Jenny who had travelled up from Birmingham but they managed to get sorted just in time for launching whereas the rest of the fleet were well fuelled by bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea from the wonderful galley crew!

The fleet were very close up the first beat until Philip and Caroline manage to lead the boats going left up the beat over towards the wrong mark causing them and a number of others to over stand the mark a bit, giving a bit of an advantage to those who went right. Ian and Jenny were obviously still in hurry mode as they lead around the windward mark closely followed by Neil and Rachel and then the rest of the fleet on mass ! The double bottom boats sped through on the long broad reach and Philip and Caroline took the lead by the second gybe mark. By this point the reservoir was full with club racers and windsurfers which made picking your way down wind interesting. By the end Philip and Caroline managed to stay ahead with Patrick and Charlotte finishing in second.

The second race was after a rather smashing lunch, Philip and Caroline lead again, this time pushed all the way by Ian and Jenny’s single bottom Crusader.
 
For the last race the wind picked up a little more and Ed and Sarah must have got their winged rudder sorted as they shot off into the lead and stayed there, Philip and Caroline chased them but in the end Patrick and Charlotte had a late burst of speed and came through and took second place.
 
Overall Philip and Caroline won the Open Meeting with Ed and Sarah taking second place on a tie break from Patrick and Charlotte.
 
At the Prize giving Philip thanked the Club for holding the Open, OODs for running some good racing the Galley for keeping us all well fed, and the fleet look forward to coming back next year.

Overall results

1st Philip David and Caroline Clarke 3499 2pts
2nd Ed and Sarah Storey 3514 4pts
3rd Patrick Hamilton and Charlotte 3502 4pts
4th Ian Smith and Jenny Chen 3316 6pts
5th John and Alison Cheetham 3468 10pts
6th Howard Chadwick and Caroline 3356 12pts
7th Neil McInnes and Rachel Dean 3216 14pts
8th Tim Gatti and Leonie 2335 16pts