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Dovestone Open…!!

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Dovestone Sailing Club nestling in the beautiful Pennine hills to the east of Manchester hosted round 2 of the Waples Wines Flying Fifteen Traveller Series over the weekend of the 29thand 30thJune. Conditions were perfect with a full reservoir and temperatures topping 30 degrees.  The fleet of 17 boats included visitors who had travelled from as far away as Bassenthwaite and Datchet adding to the strong home fleet.

On Saturday two races were sailed, andwith shifting light breezes the positions were not certain until the finish of both, with plenty of passing lanes available. David McKee and Mal Hartland managed to breakaway in the first race but otherwise it was close. The overnight leaders were John Hanson and Helen Selden. Unfortunately, an incident with a flyaway pole required the assistance of the NHS for one visitor, fortunately all was well, and he was able to sail on Sunday. Look out for the mark of Harry Potter at future events.

An excellent BBQ and social evening took place at the club on Saturday evening.

Sunday dawned a little cooler, the wind had switched round to the south east and it gradually increased during the day. By the last race the conditions were quite testing with gusts of up to force 5. The racing throughout the fleet was very competitive. The Local boats of McKee/Hartland and McKee/Jones made the most of conditions, both scoring 5 points from 3 races. Andy McKee and Rich Jones managed the other sail away win of the event in the last race and David McKee and Mal Hartland managed to claw their way up to 2ndafter a poor start to take the win by a point. John and Helen had a battle with the strongly finishing Mike Preston/Chris Robinson but managed to hold on for 3rdplace. In 4thand sailing with a bad back Mike Moore/Kayla Sheard sailed well, their results including a 3rdplace during one of the windy races.

The support of series sponsor Justin of Waples Wines was appreciated as also were the contributions of the many members who worked hard to make the weekend the success it was.

Click here to download full results

Results

1st                                    4065                                    David McKee/Mal Hartland                                    Dovestone SC                  6 pts

2nd                                    4005                                    Andy McKee/Rich Jones                                                      Dovestone SC                  7 pts

3rd                                    3954                                    John Hanson/Helen Selden                                    Datchet SC                  12 pts

1stSilver                  3391                                    Colin Pierce/Mandy Thackray                                    Dovestone SC

Classic under 2000                  496                  Rod Rowlands/Andy Robinson                                    Dovestone SC

Classic 2001-2700                  2584                  Howard Wolstencroft,/John Hesten                  Dovestone SC

Australia Reports from the Europeans – Day One ….!!

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Report from John Hassen…..!!

We arrived Medemblik yesterday. Kev and Bev flew into Amsterdam on Friday and Leonie and I have put in a couple of big weeks eating and drinking in France in the hope it will be a windy regatta and an old fat bloke is required down at tactical HQ at the back end of the boat.

After rigging the boat yesterday it was a bit late to see if we had got all the bits and pieces in the right spots, so the finally tuned athletes went to the bar to have a few beers courtesy of the Exalted One, Grandpa Grand Pooh Bar ( aka Rookie FFI International President). I am not sure he knows about his shout for everyone but Greg Wells said it was OK to enjoy ourselves which we did.

Over a few Heineken’s Kev and I decided to agree on our regatta training program (in summary it was to get the shopping done with the ladies in the morning and get to the start of the first race before the five minute gun) and to agree on regatta objectives. The regatta objectives were a bit more difficult and so we agreed with 22 top performing boats we should aim for a top 20 finish. Hey if we achieve it we can say we finished in the top 20 boats in a European Championship and not too many other Australian Flying Fifteen sailors could boast such an outcome!.

As the only Australian boat we naturally decided we should aim to be the best performing Australian boat. Another tick! On looking at the entries most have GBR on their sails so we want to beat at least one or two Poms as we are sick and tired of hearing about team GBR. The only other foreigners are people from Spain and Belgium and they look like nice people so we are not sure if they should be targets for team Aussie.

flat stanley and john hassenWe also decided we could do with another crew member and so enlisted the help of “Flat Stanley”. Please see attached photo.

Unfortunately “Flat Stanley” was worth 10 men ashore as he kept trying to help Kev at the gybe mark where we lost 5 places in each of the first two races. We plan on taking the flat man out for some gybe to gibe training before tomorrows races.

We ended up with a 16 and 15 today and had our moments being in the top 5 in race two around the first couple of marks before Flat Stan tried to help Kev with the kite.

Parkstone Winter Series – Race 4….!!

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FF from aboveSaturday the 25th of October saw 22 boats on the start line for 2 races. The first race was race 4 of the Parkstone winter series. A great course was set by the Osman family with a good beat followed by 3 nice reaches which resulted in planing in the gusts. Two rounds were sailed. The race started in a Westerly force 4 with the wind oscillating through 15 degrees and a changing tide. The first beat saw both sides of the fleet looking good at different times. At the first mark Crispin Read Wilson and Steve Brown were in the lead and managed to hold this to the end and held off a charging David Tabb and Chewey Sherrell. Graham and Ben Scroggie were third after pulling off a daring mark rounding on the reach to reach mark and stealing at least 6 places.

parkstone race 4 photo 1The second race was a part of the short mini series which is raced on every other weekend. The Osman’s set a good windward leeward course for this. The tide had also changed so inevitably the class saw a general recall. 4 boats were over the line and this resulted in some silence at the finishing line. The race was won convincingly by Bob Alexander and Huw Willetts, 2nd were Chris Gorringe and Nadia Hosie with Adrian Tattersall and Andy Murphy in 3rd.

Parkstone race 4 photo 2It was good to see the last 4 boats in each race only separated by a few seconds showing the close racing all the way through the fleet. We also welcomed back Peter and Jo Allum after Petes leg operation. However it wasn’t so nice for past Commodore Barry Rolf as we looked back to see Pete on Port colliding with Barry who nearly capsized. I’m told the Barry actually got one foot on the keel. All fun and capers here at Parkstone.

Pictures are by Jo Osman.

UKGlobal FF Nationals – Final Day…..!!

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UKGlobal Flying Fifteen National Championship – Day 4

All photos ©David Harding, http://www.sailingscenes.com

SailingScenes F15 Nats Day 4-20140708053The winners won in emphatic style: Graham Vials and Chris Turner rattled off six successive bullets to stamp their authority over the rest of the 53-boat fleet at the British Flying Fifteen Nationals sailed from Parkstone Yacht Club, wrapping up the championship with a day to spare.

SailingScenes F15 Nats Day 4-20140708004Among the other top boats, however, there was still plenty of scope for place-changing on the final day. To make life even more interesting, Tuesday brought a major change in conditions. Poole Bay turned off the wind, waves and sparkle and replaced them with a light, fickle breeze, predominantly black skies, flat water and showers.

SailingScenes F15 Nats Day 4-20140708058Going into race 7, Greg Wells and Richard Rigg were lying 2nd overall. They held an eight-point lead over Ian Cadwallader and Dave Sweet, who in turn were three points clear of Richard Lovering and Matthew Alvarado in 4th. A further five points adrift in 5th, Alan Bax and Mark Darling were among those capable of moving up the leader-board should anyone ahead have a bad day.

SailingScenes F15 Nats Day 4-20140708015In the event, all top five positions remained unchanged, but the conditions meant that nothing was certain until the line was crossed. There was so little wind before the scheduled 10:30 first start that PRO Bryan Drake delayed sending the boats out. Then a light westerly filled in allowing a start to be attempted, only for much of the fleet to jump the gun and force a general recall.

SailingScenes F15 Nats Day 4-20140708085Over the next 90 minutes or so the wind came and went, clocking left and right and generally making life as difficult as could be. Another general recall and two abandoned starts later, racing finally got under way just after 1pm in a breeze that was still far from convincing.

Getting to grips with the situation straight away were Cadwallader and Sweet, rounding the windward mark with a comfortable lead. Behind them were Martin Lewis and Mike Riley, Crispin Read-Wilson with Steve Brown and then Wells/Rigg.

Choosing the right-hand side up the next beat of the windward/leeward course, Wells and Rigg closed in on the boats ahead, as did Mark and Ben Longstaff. On the second run the wind clocked so far to the left that it became more of a broad reach and the next beat would have been a one-leg lay had PRO Bryan Drake not moved the weather mark.
By now Cadwallader and Sweet had what proved to be an unassailable lead, but a faltering breeze down the final run led to more than the occasional anxious moment for some and to a few place changes as boats were rolled over by those behind. In the end, Team Longstaff just pipped Wells and Rigg by about half a boat-length, with Read-Wilson 4th and Andy McKee/Rich Jones 5th.

As if to say ‘that’s it’, the clouds then shed their load to give everyone a good soaking as they headed for home.

SailingScenes F15 Nats Day 4-20140708101With boats packed away back at the club, it was time for the daily prize-giving, the major offering being a jib from Hyde. There were vouchers from P&B and Harken goody-bags too, as well as jackets from Hudson Wight for the overall winners, which Vials and Turner decided should go to the French team of Jean-Yves Renault and Jean-Yves Martens.
Other sponsors helping make the event possible were Dave Tabb’s Mar-Key group, Flying Fifteen builders Ovington, WebCollect, who managed the on-line entry, Poole Harbour Commissioners and, of course, the title sponsors, UKGlobal, who administer the class insurance scheme.

SailingScenes F15 Nats Day 2-20140706406So that’s it for the nationals 2014 – a great success for a highly competitive class that’s in rude health and will certainly be returning to Parkstone in the not-too-distant future.
Top six positions overall
1 4004 Graham Vials/Chris Turner 1-1-1-1-1-1 6pts
2 4030 Greg Wells/Richard Rigg 2-(12)-2-2-8-2-3 19pts
3 4014 Ian Cadwallader/Dave Sweet 4-(9)-5-7-2-6-1 25pts
4 3955 Richard Lovering/Matthew Alvarado 5-2-4-3-11-11-(25) 36pts
5 3998 Alan Bax/Mark Darling 8-3-7-(19)-5-7-11 41pts
6 4005 Andy McKee/Rich Jones 12-10-(25)-8-4-3-5 42pts

(If, like me, you are having technical trouble viewing the full results table, then try checking on the Y&Y website by clicking here… Ed)