West Riding Sailing Club, Wakefield, Yorkshire

Solo Northern Travellers

It may have been Mother’s Day on April 3^rd, but twenty-two Solos were not saying it with flowers when they took to the water at West Riding SC for the first event in the 2011 Solo Northern Travellers Series. A wind which tracked through from southwest to northwest during the day fooled most of the sailors some of the time, and various well known names followed a front end of the fleet result in one race with a more modest outcome in the next. It all led to some exciting racing with much place changing throughout the fleet.

Chris Gillard was quickest up the first beat in the first of the three races and quickly established what looked like a race winning lead. However, with the wind fluctuating in strength from brisk to gentle and shifts galore, last year’s Northern Travellers Champion, Steve Denison, accepted the challenge and took it upon himself to reel Chris in. The critical overtaking manoeuvre took place on the last lap and Steve took the first win from Chris with Oliver Dumbleton and Mike Sims next up ahead of John Webster and Tony Sampson.

After a great Sunday lunch, with apple pie for “afters”, the wind had increased a notch to help the digestion processes. With the wind behaving like a pendulum on an over wound clock, a starboard bias to the starting line changed to a port bias in seconds, catching most of the fleet out. James Porter seized the moment, squirting out from the pin end into a rapidly increasing lead. Mike Sims and Oliver Dumbleton battled fiercely for second place before Oliver capsized in squall during some frenetic boat manoeuvring. This released Mike to lead the hounds pursuing the speeding hare of James, with Andy Fox and John Dixon next up.

It looked as though James would hang on to take his first open race win, but Mike spoilt his party nipping through on the very last beat to the line. Meanwhile Dave Winder had got into the groove and came through quickly for third place ahead of Andy and John, with first race winner, Steve, recovering from turns on the start line to finish sixth.

Six boats were still in with a chance of winning overall at the start of the final race. There was a delay as the wind made nonsense of the first start line, then the fleet was away with the scramble round the first mark lead by Oliver Dumbleton, John Gledhill and Mike Sims. These three gradually pulled out a gap on the rest of the fleet and places changed several times before Mike came out on top ahead of Oliver and John. It stayed like this to the end, although only a few seconds covered them at the finish. James Porter had another good race for fourth place ahead of Chris Gillard and Steve Denison.

So Mike Sims took the first bullet of the Solo Northern Travellers series. The day had been a great start to what looks like being an exciting and competitive season.