MYA National Championship & Junior Championship Sunday 16th September 2018 Hosted By Frensham Pond SC MYG
The Footy Class has to thank the Frensham Pond Sailing Club and it's members belonging to the Model Yacht Group for all their efforts in putting on a most enjoyable days sailing for us at this years MYA National Championship. With the number of junior skippers entered totalling five it was time once again to get out the Colts Foot Junior Trophy which was last sailed for in 2014. These five enthusiastic youngsters brought the total number of skippers attending the MYA National Championship event up to seventeen. The Junior skippers raced in amongst the main fleet with brothers Oliver and Nathan Stollery and their friend Edward Lee giving a good account of themselves on more than one occasion in this fleet, indeed in the first race by selecting the port end off the line and using the wind effect off the bank to good effect the seasoned footy skippers were left surprised and shown a clean set of pintails by the Stollery brothers in the very first race of the day. With due deference to the age of the young skippers the Colts Foot Trophy was to be decided over the mornings racing which concluded at 12;30 after 7 races with Oliver Stollery the victor who also finished a creditable 9th in the MYA National Championship having completed all 16 races. Edward Lee deserves a mention an enthusiastic builder of his own Footy an adaption of the Awk design from Roger Stollery called the Hawk, and finishing second in the Junior Championship, I am sure he would have completed the 16 races as well however it was a school day the next day and there was a long drive back to the West Country ahead, so he had to reluctantly forego the final 3 races. I am sure that I speak for all the regular Footy skippers who attended when I say that having the children racing amongst us only added to our enjoyment of the day.
With the regular travelling Footy circus boosted by local skippers and the Junior members the fleet at this years MYA National Championship was the largest for sometime, some effort had been expended by the skippers with a number sporting new sails for the event. the morning racing sailed largely using the "just'in" rigs, belonged to Peter Shepherd. With the skippers having been shown the way to hug the bank in the light airs by young Oliver Stollery in the first race. John Burgoine and Peter Shepherd were the first to jump onto this from race two onwards and they largely had this area to themselves until the Midlands pair of Keith Bell and Peter Jackson joined them part way through the morning. Keith Parrott and Graham Whitehead a brace of Frensham Ponds finest got in amongst the leading four on quite a few occasions a lack of consistency being the downfall for finishing higher, however with Keith's handful of top four finishes it seems better things maybe on the horizon. John Burgoine turned on the afterburners in the afternoon although he was ably assisted by Peter Shepherd's sail servo having threatened to break down in the past few events it decided to finally give up the ghost on the most important event of the year, definitely a case of "P.P.preperation!" The course was up and down, upwind buoy with spreader followed by downwind gate, back to a 2/3rd of the way finish line, as usual Race Officer Roger Stollery stretched the course to fill the available space and then a little further! The wind got up a little in the afternoon seeing most skippers drop to various incarnations of an A rig and of course we nearly all got caught out by the light airs of the two lap final race well done Graham on that one. As usual for the Footy class the racing was completed in the best of spirits despite the close racing, at times at bit too close as evidenced by Roger's superb photographs, with penalty observation being of the highest order. All that is left is to thank the skippers who took part, the members of Frensham Pond MYG for their efforts in putting on the event for us, especially Nick Royse & Keith Parrott and to the Commodore of Frensham Sailing Club, for presenting the prizes.