Gill Flying Fifteen Inland Championship at Grafham Water Sailing Club

A busy startline - Gill Flying Fifteen Inland Championship at Grafham © Paul Sanwell / OPP

2024 is a worlds qualifying year for the Flying 15 class and not surprisingly, a large and high quality fleet of 40 boats turned up at Grafham to find the sun shining and some wind blowing.

Principal Race Officer Nigel Denchfield told the assembled sailors at the briefing to expect some possible windshifts on the race course - how right he was!

Great shoreside organisation from the club meant everyone was launched in plenty of time - huge thanks to all the club sailors who assisted with that.

A decent southerly stayed in across the course, but with serious shifting going on near the top mark. Anyone silly enough to end up not making the windward mark and having to tack back out several times - well what can I say, except welcome to my world!

The class stipulated that the spacer mark be laid to leeward of the windward mark in an effort to reduce windward mark pile-ups. On balance it seemed to work - other recollections may differ.

Gill Flying Fifteen Inland Championship at Grafham - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Anyway, R1 and for that matter R2 were both taken by Ben McGrane and Scott Dawson with Jeremy Davy and Martin Huett taking two seconds. R3 was won by Greg Wells and David Tulloch with Shane McCarthy and Jim Hunt taking second.

So overnight pretty close and the forecast indicating a decent breeze for the three races planned for Sunday meant that there was all to play for.

So, for Sundays three races, there were some postponements and some recalls, too many for this scribe to remember, although there was an awful lot of chat on the VHF between the PRO and his on water team, keeping those with handheld radios entertained. Three races happened, and three races were good - for some at least.

R4 and a new race winner - Mark Nicholson and Steve Culpitt followed by local heroes Dave Lucas and (one of the youngest competitors in the fleet) Harry Lucas in second.

R5 and another winning team Richard Whitworth and Trefor Jones taking the win from second placed Hamish Mackay and Andrew Lawson.

Dave and Harry Lucas - Gill Flying Fifteen Inland Championship at Grafham - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

And finally (we do this for fun right?) in the hot sun, in shifty, impossible to read winds (for mortals anyway) under black flag (I think - I was too spaced out to notice) Simon Childs and female crew Kato stormed it to the finish line with a brilliant win from David McKee and Mal Hartland.

All this was being closely observed by Nigel Denchfield, our PRO who said afterwards, "The wind was a bit crazy, lots of place changing, some very close finishes and only two OCS all weekend. The fleet was mighty good at starting." High praise indeed!

Thanks must go to our sponsors Gill and to our photographer Paul Sanwell whose photographs can be seen at 8573832.tifmember.com/p/93264rmc/gill-flying-fifteen-inlands-july

Championship winners- Hugely consistent Jeremy Davy and Martin Huett richly deserved 2024 Gill Flying Fifteen inland champions. Second, Ben McGrane and Scott Dawson, and third overall Shane MacCarthy and Jim Hunt.

A terrific weekend of sailing- if you weren't there you can still join the fun at the Northens, and the Scottish championships- all to come later in the year. We hope to see you.

Martin Huett and Jeremy Davy, winners - Gill Flying Fifteen Inland Championship at Grafham - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Overall Results:

Scott Dawson and Ben McGrane, second overall - Gill Flying Fifteen Inland Championship at Grafham - photo © Paul Sanwell / OPP