| Home  | News  | Calendar  | Association  | Technical |

National Championships - West Lancashire YC – Report, Full Results & Photos

Report: P Simes              Overall Results     Gold Fleet     Silver Fleet      Bronze Fleet      Special Prizes       Photographs

The 1st 3 day Nationals took place over the 30th June - 2nd July period of Friday, Saturday & Sunday at Ainsdale hosted by West Lancashire YC. The weather was fantastic and generally the wind did show over the 3 days but was quite shifty and tricky to predict. The Race Officer, Tony Halliwell, had a difficult task of fitting in 6 races made even harder by there being a certain football match kicking off at 4pm on Saturday and the majority of the fleet wanting to watch it!

Friday dawned with a good offshore breeze which gradually shifted right throughout the day to eventually become a good onshore sea breeze. The practice race started late and at Race 1's allotted start time causing a bit of confusion as to whether it was a practice race or not. Whether this had a bearing on the final overall resyult we'll never know but the team of 13907-Tim Jones/Dale Knowles from Holyhead SC/Bolton SC won the race and those who are superstitious believe that whoever wins the practice race never wins the main event!
Race 1 started in a light F1/F2 and the usual suspects came out of the gate early only to find the late starters benefiting from a right hand shift and slightly more wind. Early contenders showing were Tim/Dale followed by 13911-Matt Mee/Stuart Bithell from Hollingworth Lake SC and 13803-Paul Owen/Bev Hately from South Staffs SC. These three led the way down the 1st reach with the wind dying away to virtually nothing leaving the fleet to try and punch their way through the tide. Much place changes followed within the following fleet until the wind filled in further from the right leaving some of the well known championship racers near the back of the fleet. The wind then remained fairly constant for the remainder of the race and Matt/Stuart managed to pass Tim/Dale to finish 1st and 2nd respectively with Paul/Bev showing great speed in 3rd.
Race 2 started after a long break waiting for the wind to settle down and again it paid to start late as the pathfinder 13812-Stephen Graham/Thomas Bennet from Burwain SC kept going after being released, tacked on the lay-line and led round the windward mark. Again Tim/Dale and Paul/Bev were near the head of the fleet with some of the more usual suspects also in the fray. One team missing however was Matt/Stuart who were well down the fleet.The wind whilst being more constant in speed than Race 1, kept shifting back and forth making moving up the fleet a bit haphazard but most of the the top boats seemed to make it through. Stephen/Thomas showed good speed to hang on for the win with Tim/Dale 2nd and Paul/Bev 3rd. The fleet came ashore at about 6pm feeling tired mostly from nervous exhaustion! Thus after day 1, Tim/Dale led overnight with Paul/Bev 2nd and Stephen/Thomas in 3rd, however most of the contenders had had one bad race so it was all to play for over the next two days. West Lancashire laid on a great BBQ at the club at 8pm followed by a free raffle with prizes provided by event sponsors. Most of the fleet managed to attend, however the sailing had taken it's toll and it was noticeable to see that most of the remaining people at closing time where the more energetic youngsters of the fleet.

Saturday's races started on a bright sunny morning in an offshore breeze as the fleet had decided that they wanted to start earlier so that they could get back onshore in time for the footie! The wind was a good F3 with the pathfinder 13931-Richard Instone/James Goodfellow from Chase SC leading the fleet around the 1st mark followed by Matt/Stuart, Tim/Dale and 13892-Carl Jeffs/Jim Toothill from Trimpley SC. These positions remained fairly constant until the next beat where Carl/Jim went left, Matt/Stuart went right and Richard/James went middlish. Carl/Jim moved into 1st/Matt/Stuart moved into 2nd and Richard/James dropped to 6th! 13904-Neil Platt/Jonathan McGovern from Bolton SC/West Kirby SC capitalised on Richard/James' misfortune and moved into 3rd with Tim/Dale 4th. These positions remained until the finish.
Race 4 was firstly delayed for a very unusual reason, namely the designated pathfinder 13924-Ian Dobson/Andy Tunnicliffe from Burwain SC/Royal Windermere YC capsized after the race. Not a problem I hear you say, after all it's a Series 2 boat, they come up almost empty. That's true unless of course you haven't got any bungs in and that's the reason the capsize happened in the first place! So the fleet were treated to an unusual sight of Ian/Andy being towed as fast as possible by a rib in an effort to empty their boat! Just as that was about complete the wind died, the sea breeze came in from the opposite direction and wouldn't settle. This was the Race Officer's nightmare, he had to move the course through 180 degrees with an agitated fleet wanting to start so they didn't miss the footie! After a long delay the wind settled down and the race started in F2/F3. Again it paid to start late and the clear leader around the windward mark was 13915-Hugh Gill/Stuart Boyle from Sutton DC, the GP14 President of Ireland. They were followed round by 13839-Ian Platt/Matt Johnson from Bolton SC and 13916-John Telford/Andy Smith from Bassenthwaite SC in 3rd. Ian's brother Neil and Jonathan were also in the hunt in 4th whilst another Irish visitor 13833-Naill Henry/Ossian Geraghty from Sligo YC were 5th. Despite much jostling the places remained the same until the finish. Despite the Race Officer's best efforts the fleet got ashore at about 3.55pm and quite a few boats remained unpacked until after the penalty shoot-out.
Tim/Dale had done enough to lead into the final day, but now that a discard had kicked in, Matt/Stuart moved to within 3 points with Neil/Jonathan a further point behind in 3rd, thus it was all to play for the next day. The club had laid on a big screen for the footie but due to the racing not finishing as early as planned, some competitors stayed at their accommodation only traveling to the club after the penalty shootout. A great evening was had listening and dancing to the live duo and disco until closing time.

Sunday dawned hot and sunny with an offshore breeze that had shifted around to onshore just as Race 5 was starting causing quite a few concerns amongst some of the fleet. Most of the competitors had now worked out that it was paying to start late, so it was very strange to watch a National race start where the 1st boats didn't cross the line until after the 1st minute but everybody knowing that the gate would remain open until all of the fleet had started, how some of them were going to pay for that in Race 6! Despite the near drifting conditions at the start the usual suspects rounded the 1st mark at the head of the fleet. Tim/Dale were 1st with Matt/Stuart 2nd and Ian/Matt 3rd. Matt/Stuart managed to catch and overhaul Tim/Dale thus reducing their overall lead to 2 points, however Matt/Stuart's discard was currently 1 15th whilst Tim/Dale's was a 7th. Ian and Matt finished 3rd with critically Neil/Jonathan finishing 4th. This meant that if Neil/Jonathan won the last race, Tim/Dale were outside the top six and Matt/Stuart outside of the top five they would win the Championship. Thus three people could still win, making Tim/Dale's job a bit harder as they couldn't just sail Matt//Stuart out of the top five to win.
Race 6 started in the most wind of the weekend with a relatively short course due to the wind strength, this proved to be crucial as Tim/Dale decided to make their customary very late start only to find that due to the fact that the majority of the fleet were now starting late that they had overstood the lay line to the windward mark by nearly two hundred yards and that their nearest competitors Matt/Stuart were leading, with noting that they could do to stop Matt/Stuart they promptly retired to the beach. Now all Matt/Stuart had to do was finish in the top five and the only way that wasn't going to happen would be if they broke something or capsized. This wasn't the case and they rounded off their Championship win by winning their 3rd race of the Championship. Ian/Andy finished 2nd with Richard/James in 3rd.

Thus our new National Champions are Matt Mee (Aged 20) and Stuart Bithell (Aged 19) from Hollingsworth Lake SC, well done lads!

On a final encouraging note, the fleet of 65 boats contained 4 female helms,14 female crews, 6 youth helms and 14 youth crews with 6 of the youths competing in a top 5 boat, who said it was an old man's boat!

Results:

| Contact  | Back to Top |