MYA
Footy
National Championship

Saturday 14th May 2016

The class of 2016 assembled to compete for the Stella Rock trophy and the title of MYA National Champion, no Rob Vice this year and so everyone felt they had a chance, although there are those amongst us who would have welcomed the chance to go head to head.

The fleet was made up of nine skippers from the Midlands and Met & Southern Districts, the competition taking place at Watermead MBC, Aylesbury which currently is the most central venue we can find to give everyone the same opportunity to attend.

Watermead MBC once again were our hosts, Clive Bardell and his team always run a tight ship and support the event with enthusiasm, which allows us to as many skippers on the water and those of us who would normally be involved in the running to concentrate on our sailing. The Abington Park buoy's and course setting equipment was employed within the bowl arena near the car park.
It was a fairly long (by Peter Shepherd's standards) beat down to a Port rounding with a spreader, a run back to a mark just beyond the start line and the back to the windward end a single buoy rounding the following the course of the bank downwind back into the bowl for a reach or beat depending on the wind shifts across the finish line.

The wind was forecast as 10mph however it was the general consensus that it was slightly stronger than this at the start, lunchtime saw a lull and then forecast wind came in for the afternoon, this saw sail sizes vary from the middle suits on up to one below maximum size, with only occasionally a skipper using a Just'in.

The first beat proved to be somewhat tricky, if you got too far out into the lake, then the wind was bending around the tree's on the far bank and if you failed to pick this it came as something of a surprise when you went to tack and found you could have been sailing much closer. The smart skippers soon learnt to take the starboard tack and stay on closer to the opposite bank, coming into the first mark closer albeit on Port, picking the wind shifts was key to sailing a tight course.

From the offset it was all very close with three skippers, Mike Ewart (36, ICE), Peter Shepherd (65, Fat Boy) & David Wilkinson (46, ICE) all trading places over the first few races, then over the lunch break Peter had a series of bullets punctuated by a DNF when tricked by a lull he switched up a sail only to find himself over sailed. Mike Ewart kept on coming as only Mike can, keeping the pressure on right up to the last race. David Wilkinson had a DNF in race four due to a technical difficulty and from then on never quite recovered his early form. In Race 13 he reminded Peter & Mike to stop messing about as they match raced each other over the final leg only to let David cross the line ahead and steal the win.

In the morning session Sid Sims (05, Fat Boy) sailed as well as I have seen, leading the fleet on occasions, he went into the lunch break in fourth, however he failed to pick the slightly lighter wind in the afternoon and might possibly have changed up a rig, which could have bettered his chances of hanging onto or improving his position, that having been said for most of the races he was certainly in contention with the front of the fleet, hopefully he can build on this and it will only be a matter of time before we see a podium finish. For his efforts he picked up the Novice prize.

Peter Jackson (30, F Plan) was sailing in his consistent manner notching up mid fleet positions, Trevor Thomas (58, ICE) started slowly and then gradually improved throughout the day to record a couple of second places, then a bit of a gap to the rest of the fleet with Keith Parrott (31, ICE) improving and Frank Wood (136, 1299) and Tony Butler (87, Slim) both learning a lot of what it takes to sail at this level.
To cap off the event the sun came out to add a bit of warmth came to the day.

Thanks to Clive Bardall and the Watermead team and to all the enthusiastic Footy skippers who attended and made it such an enjoyable event.