The regatta, held in blustery condistions saw a record attendance of 20 boats across the three groups. The Junior fleet benefitted from the first RYA Junior training run by the club with entrants in Toppers, Lasers and Dragon Blues (similar to Optimists). Showing no fear in the windy conditions the youngsters demonstrated that it was possible to invert a boat fully at Attenborough, albeit a Dragon.
Two races were held with the first won by Shannon Hamilton in a Topper with Christa Beaumont second and Jemma Hamilton third. Christa won the second race from Alex Gilbert and Jemma and thus won overall. Full race results are here.
The Masters event had smaller numbers, supposedly because some members refuse to acknowledge they are getting older. For those that took part there was close racing between Roger Day and Bob Ceurstemount for first place with Roger coming out on top. The dual for third place was between Mirror sailors Richard Wood and Dave Barrowcliffe making his debut of the season a successful one. Full race results are here.
The Novice fleet saw nine entries ranging from Mirrors to Visions. The first race in windy conditions was won by Adrian Clarke and his son Alistair, from Andrew Beaumont and Richard Hamilton. The second race started in even gustier conditions resulting in a few retirements including Adrian in his Enterprise after the kicking strap fitting was ripped out of the bottom of the boat. Never has a boat had so much gear failure but it is now almost new. The race was eventually won by Richard Hamilton in a Vision with Andrew Beaumont second and Brendan McGrath third in another Mirror.
The final race should have been a decider between Adrian and Richard who both a previous race, but unfortunately Richard couldn’t enter. Adrian won the race comfortably from Andrew Beaumont and Brendan McGrath, leaving Adrian as overall winner. Full race results are here.
The day was a great success and ultimately dominated by the Beaumont, Clarke and Hamilton families so congratulations to them and hopefully we will now see more juniors on the water.