Banbury Sailing Club 

Contents

Merlin Rocket Silver Tiller Open 2004 Report

A westerly wind peaking at some 35 knots and a brim full Boddington reservoir greeted the 29 Merlin Rockets who turned up on Sunday, 4th April at Banbury SC for the Merlin Rocket Silver Tiller Open Meeting. The weather forecast talked of 12 - 15 mph winds even later that day!

After a briefing by John Green, the PDO for the day, who had to shout to make himself heard above the wind, the first race got off to a fairly clean start with only three boats over the line. With the wind in the west, it is very difficult to set a long first beat at Banbury but despite this, there were no major incidents - just the usual noise - around the first windward mark and the fleet settled down to work their way through the five laps of the race.

Tom Stewart & Chris Downham in Trigger Happy (3628) coming in second closely pursued by The Phantom Menace(3611) of Dave Winder & Jill Blake.

The fleet had almost divided into two halves by the end of the race largely as a result of the wind backing when the leaders were sailing up the beat on one lap which enabled them to fetch the next mark easily while the other half of the fleet found that the wind had shifted back so that they had to beat up that same leg.

After an excellent lunch which helped to increase the righting moment, the wind had backed to the south-west which came as a relief to the PDO but the accompanying increase in wind strength to some 40 knots in the gusts was not so good for the competitors. A new course was set with a better beat to the first mark and the second race saw the fleet go off with only three boats over the line despite the wind strength.

The torrential rain which accompanied the squall also cleared the pontoons of the photographic brigade who were anticipating some good pictures of the fleet as they swept past the pontoons under spinnaker. Unfortunately, the pictures were not as good from the inside of the bosun's store where they had all beat a hasty retreat but at least the cameras stayed dry.

In spite of the weather, Rong Number again got it right and after an excellent start opened out a good lead which they kept to the end with Trigger Happy again second and the Smart Tart of Pat Blake & Alex Jackson in third with The Phantom Menace who had been in third place in the first race having to retire from this one.

The third and last race was run back to back and with the wind steadily increasing, Rong Number decided that enough was enough and gave the third race a miss after checking that they had wrapped up the meeting with two firsts.

This time, in spite of their best efforts to lose it, line honours went to Trigger Happy who had been second in the two previous races. On the last leg to the finish line, they went for their spinnaker despite having a substantial lead over the second placed boat. After teetering on the brink several times, the wind finally got them just 100 yards short of the line when they were flattened under spinnaker. Fortunately for them the closest of their pursuers was also wiped out in the same gust and the Trigger Happy' crew managed to recover to just cross the line in first place with Smart Tart, who had been in third place, storming in close behind to take second.

No report would be complete without mentioning the only Banbury boat that ventured forth in these conditions.  Vic Gyselynck in Purple Dreams (3229), crewed by Rebecca Baker ventured out for a late start in the first race and did not finish last.  In the second race, Vic crewed this time by David Turner (smart move Becky!) got wiped out under spinnaker by a massive squall on the first lap and then Vic found that his new waterproof trousers were very good at keeping the water in up to his waist - must have been wanting to save it for later in the year. After getting the crew to helm while he removed his boots to let the water out, Vic decided that enough was enough and retired for the day.

As usual, we saw the usual parade of incredible flying machines, the majority of which were of the Canterbury Tales design, many new out of the Winder mould with a sprinkling of newer EZ Rollers and even an older NSM1 and NSM2 - the later taking the older boat prize. Interestingly, the winning boat was an  Let It Ride design which obviously worked well in the conditions or perhaps it was the crew?

Carbon was very much in evidence, not only in mast, boom, spinnaker poles and foils but also structurally in many hulls and decks. Despite it being very windy, the only breakages seemed to be to such things as kickers which must have been cranked on very hard while about a quarter of the fleet discovered the efficacious properties of Boddington mud!

Of course, if you look at the Forum on the Merlin Rocket website, the other thing that seemed to have broken was the helms and crews going by the large number of comments about fingers, limbs and bones. Despite this, everybody seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

Thanks to John Green, the PDO and all the Banbury members who made the day possible by working in the duty team, behind the bar and in the kitchen.

We look forward to welcoming everyone back next year.

Richard Turner
Merlin Rocket Fleet Captain
Banbury Sailing Club

FULL RESULTS