Comet Open at Cransley Sailing Club

Cransley Comet Open © John Townsend

What a miserable year so far in terms of weather! Well, for one day at least, the gods looked down on our wonderful reservoir in Northamptonshire and welcomed 10 visitors as well as the 7 from the home club to a unusually warm northerly Force 3-4, occasionally 5 wind.

It was great to see familiar faces but also new ones with Meg Warren making her debut but ensuring some familiarity by camping the night before.

The racing was the best we have seen for many years, with really tight encounters throughout the fleet.

In the first race, the race officer John Townsend used a transit across the whole lake and this meant the fleet was well spread out. Yours truly had checked out the line beforehand and managed to get a few metres higher than most which paid off for a lap before the Yellow Peril, Chris Robinson and Andy Dale worked out the wind patterns and together with Eddie Pope and Michael Ettershank powered through. There were some gritty performances further down the fleet and the ever present silver surfer Henry Jaggers showed a lot of the younger ones a clean pair of heels. Meg returned smiling! There were capsizes but we wont mention them too much Julie, Jason...

Cransley Comet Open - photo © John Townsend

In order to slow these wily visitors out Cransley Sailing Club has a well oiled trick - give them a good lunch (Sarah's sumptuous Sausage Casserole).

This worked a treat in the 2nd race, where the wind picked up a notch to F4-5, as I managed another quick start and established a lead just enough to hold off the increasingly closing group of Ben, Chris, Michael, Eddie and Andy. Alun Bevan moved ahead of John Copenhall (Johns excuse was his boat repairs was letting in water, doesn't hold water!). Unfortunately Meg, Rhiain Bevan and Alan Bennett retired (Alan later admitted whilst he loved Cransley as a place, it didn't like him, one year you'll crack it!).

Cransley Comet Open - photo © John Townsend

Going into the final race there was a reduced number of diehards left. A change of course and a reduced number of laps meant tensions were high, with the top 4 places all to play for. This was the closest race of the 3 and some great tacking battles ensued. The victor Chris eventually wrestled the lead from Andy and myself, and headed for sure with a big smile.

There were some great performances throughout the fleet, and particularly those who finished all 3 races.

The meeting was brought to a finish with a lovely spread of sandwiches and cake (thank you Sophie, Sarah). We only needed champagne to complete - but we had that with the sailing throughout the day - thank you up there for delivering at least one decent sailing day this year and to all the visitors for visiting!

Overall Results: