Former Winners 2018 John Burgoine 2017 Peter Shepherd 2016 Peter Jackson 2015 Mike Ewart 2014 Peter Shepherd 2013 Phil Tyler 2012 David Wilkinson
The usual suspects braved the conditions to attend the Bassett Lowke Trophy, as it turned out it wasn't so bad weather wise and as is usual for a city centre pond the conditions were variable! Does it matter which boat John Burgoine sails I ask myself, with his latest offering the Alias 3 a derivation of a design by the late Roger Unit he was always in the hunt for race wins and proved the class of the field, John has also altered the swing rigs he sails although I have to say the jury was still out as to whether that was a significant improvement.
Peter Shepherd missed three races due to Fat Boy failures, firstly the rudder servo, at which point whilst removing the servo cassette plate he broke the mounting, out came the superglue! later on the sail servo failed meaning a trip inside the tiny boat with banana fingers to replace that! So three discards used up staying on the water meant he went home happy with his second place, I think fat Boy is trying to tell him something.
Peter Jackson with his Ibex was just not quite consistant enough to overhaul Peter Shepherd and missed out for the secound event in a row by one point and had to settle for third, the mid fleet crew of David Wilkinson, Keith Parrott and Sid Sims all had times when it came good and were often challenging for race win opportunities although only David was able to convert one of those. Tony Butler has a surprise win in race 4, which hopefully will act as encouragement for future events and local lad Derek Lane's fat Boy slowly ground to a hault over the morning racing being totally kaput! by race 9.
Many thanks to Tim Leese for acting as race officer and all round good egg in so many ways and i am sure we are all looking forward to Fred's Big un and the Videlo Globe, April 13th and 14th respectively.