Banbury Sailing Club

Merlin Rocket Midland Series Open Meeting

FULL RESULTS

Saturday 19^th April 2008
at Banbury Sailing Club

The second Open of the Midland Series saw 17 Merlin Rockets gather at Banbury SC on a rather grey day with a ENE wind of some 18 knots spiced up by some extremely strong gusts which allowed the PDO managed to set a memory challenging course around all of the eight buoys.

The fleet got away cleanly in the first race with Still Not Over (Matt Biggs & Rob Kennaugh) getting a good start to lead around the windward mark and holding this lead for the remainder of the race, opening out a good distance on second placed Carbonator (Steve & Gill Leney). Third place was closely fought over by Headcase (Tosh and Andy Maddison) and Autumn Gold (Mike Ainslow & Liese Scott) with Headcase winning out in the end.

The second race was run back to back over the same course and again Still Not Over team were first to the windward mark closely followed by Headcase, Carbonator, Smoked Salmon (Julian & Sam Harms) and Steppenwolf (Dave Fowler & Amy Gardner). This was as close as the following pack got to the leader, Still Not Over, who sailed a race of his own to the gun. Behind him, Headcase and Carbonator fought it out for second place until Carbonator succeeded in getting past on one of the spinnaker legs and held on to take second place from Headcase in third and Smoked Salmon fourth.

After an ample lunch during which Still Not Over’s helm and crew, having won the day, were seen to liberally top up their liquid levels, the fleet went out again in a slightly reduced wind which had gone a little more northerly. Despite helm and crew in Still Not Over swopping roles, they were still first to round the windward mark from Carbonator, Headcase and Autumn Gold. Still Not Over was closely pressed by Carbonator for several laps before managing to power away on one of the spinnaker legs by going lower after rounding the mark so that they got into the wind earlier. Needless to say they went on to take the gun from Carbonator in second. Third place was hotly contested by Headcase and Autumn Gold with Headcase just winning out at the last buoy before the finish.

The Banbury Cross Trophy was presented by the Club’s Commodore, Malcolm Clark, to the Still Not Over team of Matt Biggs & Rob Kennaugh of Blithfield SC with Steve and Gill Leney in Carbonator, also from Blithfield SC, taking second d place from third placed Tosh and Andy Maddison in Headcase from Banbury SC.

All but one of the fleet came from Midland based clubs - the exception being 3301 Delicious Monster sailed by Stuart Bailey and Zoe Noble from Wilsonian SC on the Medway. They bought Delicious Monster from a Banbury member last year and brought her back to sail at the club that had been her home for the last 20 or so years.

Thanks to the duty crew ably led by Club President, Dave Cornish, the catering team who kept everybody fed and those behind the bar. Without such helpers the day would not have been possible nor as enjoyable for everyone.

Richard Turner
Merlin Rocket Fleet Captain
Banbury Sailing Club

FULL RESULTS