Race report from Sprint 15 Northern Championship 26th 27th September 2009

The fourth Sprint 15 TT of 2009 took place on 26th& 27th September at Carsington Sailing Club in Derbyshire. The sun broke through on a clear morning, with a light and very shifty wind promising difficult conditions for the fleet.

Arriving over 2 hours early, you’d normally expect other boats in bits with people rushing around. As it turns out, most boats were already rigged and ready on the beach. Erling Holmberg, with time to kill, was telling us how he managed to get from his private equatorial island (I.O.W) to Carsington in under 3 hours, impressive! Robert England from Ludlow on the other hand, spent his time wisely, cleaning cow muck off his boat on the beech. God knows how it got there, but it’s strongly suspected he may be storing his hulls in fertilizer to make them go faster.

Race briefing informed a slight change to the sailing rules, with a 4-2-GO start, to clear the line of boats ASAP. This caused much confusion to the competitors, as no one knew how to change their watch count down from 5 to 4 minutes.

First race was staged on a trapezoid course. A good start from Charles Watson, George Love, and Erling Holmberg saw them reach the windward mark first. Erling dropped back a little, but managed keep a good position in the fleet. On lap 4, a huge wind shift on the left side on the course meant it was snakes and ladders for positions. John Postlethwaite and Steve Sawford used this to best advantage, with John taking the lead, and Steve picking up at least 7 places. Postlethwaite went on to win the race from Charles Watson and Robin Newbold.  Rob Bowen of Netley SC, competing in his first traveller event, and Ian Collyer of Hollowell SC, kept their nerve. With big gains to be had in the troublesome winds, Rob and Ian managed to pick up some places to finish eleventh and eighth respectively. During the briefing we were told not to go through the gate on the downwind leg. A few unsure sailors were confirming their thoughts out on the course, until one conscientious sailor pulled out the SI’s from his buoyancy aid, talk about thinking ahead. A couple of sailors to forget this were Robert England and Howard Hawkes, who later realised their mistakes and retired.

Race 2 saw light-wind guru Robert England take the lead from the start and hold off stiff competition from Neil Parkhurst. Tactical genius John Postlethwaite found another windshift to take him up to fourth. In the same shift, Keith Chidwick managed to gain around 10 places to put him up the sharp end. England stretched his lead, from Parkhurst, and Postlethwaite third.

Race 3 had a very port biased line, allowing 7 boats to start on a port flyer. At the windward mark, Watson, Newbold and Parkhurst led, with England gradually catching. Postlethwaite lost out on lap 2 by getting on the wrong side of a wind shift. The leading group contained Watson, England, Newbold and Parkhurst, but England was soon to drop back with a mistake, missing a mark and doing his turn. Ray Gall came in hot approaching the windward mark on port, had to take evasive action to avoid starboard boats and got squeezed out by fellow club member George Love and was forced to tack in Gordon Goldstone’s water subsequently causing Ray to take a 360 penalty. Watson pulled ahead, but was chased down by Parkhurst. Charles buckled under the intense pressure, temporarily forgetting how to make his boat go forwards and somehow managed to scrape the victory by just a few seconds.

Later in the day, sailors and spectators enjoyed a great meal prepared by the Galley which was followed by the usual friendly banter at others expense!  Come Sunday morning, the ensemble were treated again by the galley to bacon and egg rolls.

Sunday brought less wind, and the start was delayed in hope the wind would build up to forecasted levels. Most boats started race 4 at the committee boat end. A big group of boats were to round the windward mark together and head downwind 6 abreast, producing a busy leeward mark. The fleet later split into 2 groups. Gordon Goldstone showed a lack of spatial awareness as he managed to clip a buoy unprovoked. Later in that lap, TT newcomer Chris Hodges, was still getting to grips with race rules, and got squeezed into the leeward buoy, and moored up to it for a while, as others sailed happily by. John Postlethwaite also chose to hit a buoy and decided to do his turn in the wrong place, luffing Erling off course. Any complaints by Holmberg were duly ignored. Stewart Pegum had a solid race, finishing with his weekend best of fourth, to pull himself up the overall standings. Chris Hodges sailed a great race even after his mistake, continuing to improve throughout the weekend, getting better results in each race.

Race 5 saw the wind die even more, to around a few knots with the occasional zephyr. At this point there was 4 leaders within 2 points of each other, so it was still all to play for into the last race. A big wind shift on the start benefited Charles Watson, George Love and Howard Hawkes who started on port. The remainder of the fleet soon realised that crossing the line on starboard was a daft idea, so everyone tacked onto port. With the wind shifting, Newbold, Watson and Parkhurst kept close to each other, but John Postlethwaite once again managed to make the most of the conditions and snuck away. Erling made a big gain on lap 2 to pull himself up to third. Close racing in the middle of the fleet saw Charles Watson, Neil Parkshurst, Gordon Goldstone and George Love battle it out. Robin Gill benefited from this group of boats holding each other up though, getting up to ninth, ahead of Love and Goldstone.

With John Postlethwaite’s convincing win, he clinched the title of 2009 Northern Champion. Robin Newbold came in 2 points behind in second, and another 2 points behind was Charles Watson.

The Sprint 15 fleet now look forward to the Grafham Cat Open on 24-25th October, and a return to Carsington Water on 5th December for the second in the series of five one day Winter TT.

Overall Results

1st John Postlethwaite – Una-rig

2nd Robin Newbold – Una-rig

3rd Charles Watson – Una-rig

4th  Neil Parkhurst – Una-rig

5th  Erling Holmberg – Una-rig

6th  Steve Sawford – Una-rig

 Windsport Catpart Vouchers

£15 Robin Newbold, £10 Gordon Goldstone, £5 John Postlethwaite