Grafham Water Sailing Club

29^th Grand Grafham Grand Prix – 27^th December 2009

 Competitors arriving at Grafham for the 29^th Grand Prix were faced with very cold conditions and had to navigate thick ice through the club to get to the launching area. The weather building up to the day was hardly inviting and whilst many decided to give it miss, those that travelled were met for the first race by a fairly steady westerly of  4 to 5 with heavy gusts of around 30 knots. Capsizes were inevitable and there was at least one broken Merlin mast. The wind eased to a 3 to 4 for the afternoon race but strong gusts still came through. The Thames A Rater’s first visit to Graham was short lived as he turned back before reaching the start line. Not a day for the faint hearted!

 On track one the Fast Asymmetric fleet became a tussle between Andrew Peakes’s  Musto Skiff, Nick Craig in a B14 and the final winner Henry Lloyd Williams and Sam Batten in a 29er.

 The Foiling 600’s and Moths were racing on level terms as separate fleet and the winner was Simon Hiscocks in his RS600. We hope this Foiling Shoot Out becomes a firm fixture in their calendar.

 The Medium fleet was dominated by Fireballs and Merlins who had some close racing with Tom Gillard & Sam Breary in their Fireball getting the better of Matt Biggs & Ben Hollis in their Merlin.

 The Sprint 15 fleet enjoyed some close racing but Stuart Snell triumphed with two Sprint bullets.

 The Slow fleet contained the largest class of 13 FF15’s – again some very close racing at the top of the fleet with Dave Lucas and Andy Palmer getting the better of Charles Apthorp and David Richards who needed to use their lunch break to repair the jib halyard fitting.

 The rest of the  Slow Fleet, racing on handicap, was again close but won by the Albacore of Neville Herbert and Mark Fowler from the Scorpion of Peter Gray and Richard Pepperdine.

 The Single Handed start was split between the Challengers racing as a fleet and the rest. The Challengers did exceptionally well with only one boat not completing both races. The winner with was Val Millward from George Barker.

 In the balance of the singlehanded fleet racing on handicap there was a comprehensive win by Simon Hawkes in his Phantom, the only boat to record 2 overall handicap bullets on the day.

 As well as  thanks to all the PROs and volunteers we were particularly grateful to the Rescue Drivers who had plenty of work to do in very cold conditions.

Results

 For photos of the slow and single handed fleets please have a look at Marcia Carpenter’s website

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