GRAND PRIX REPORT- LAKELAND AND BORDER REGION SERIES – EVENT 1 OF 2021 SERIES

Killington Sailing Association April 24th 2021

At last we were able to host a sailing event again at Killington!! 21 competitors came from all over the North of England to compete in Round 1 of a 13 event series that will culminate at Ullswater in October.  The highest placed local sailor was Mary Anne Beacock of Coniston Sailing club who was 1st lady, youth and radial rig sailor and 5th overall and just pipped her father who was 6th! Highest placed Killington sailor was John Whalley. 

Very tricky fluky winds shifting and dropping away to (almost) nothing at some stages but nonetheless three races completed  with the third race being by far the best from the point of view of wind.  Race 1 started in reasonable breeze but as time went on it dropped away but most  managed to complete 3 laps with only the small rigs being stopped early on two laps.

There appeared to be a wind shift to the West at the start of Race 2 but with only minutes to the start a massive right windshift caused the race committee to abandon that start and go back to the course used for Race 1 though in the end it became a reaching start which is not ideal.

During Race 2 it had become apparent that there was a permanent shift to the right (east) and the wind had picked up a bit so the course was changed again and despite a contentious possible early start at the pin end, Race 3 continued with a relatively brisk wind occasionally – we even had a couple of capsizes.   Tim Keighley had to work hard to get back to the front from a poor start. 

As ever cream floats to the top and the same familiar faces were placed at the top of the leaderboard.  It was apparent also that people were quite rusty on the start line and there was quite a bit of argy bargy aka rule breaking but nobody actually took it to protest.  It was great to see 21 boats on the start line from a wide range of clubs and a decent turn out of 8 boats from the home club as well.

Very pleased to congratulate Tim Keighley from West Riding on winning overall, to Stuart Belfield from Leigh and Lowton in 2nd and Greg Liggins from Derwent Reservoir in 3rd.