The last big open event of the year attracted a lot of good skippers from 10 clubs from the North, Midland and Southern Districts to Guildford’s water at Abbey Meads Lake for the climax of both the 2016 Ranking and GAMES series. The cold 5-10 mph North North-Easterly wind initially allowed Race Officer, Peter Stollery, to set a long windward leeward course and give perfect ‘A’ rig conditions for some really good racing.

Added to the excitement was the appearance of the 3 pre-production Brad Gibson GRUNGE designs sailed by top skippers. 12 good races were completed.

A great deal of care was taken to get the starting line and gate angles set without bias.  Although this looked OK to spread the boats along the starting line, initially the competitors were overenthusiastic and the first two starts resulted in a general recall.

When the race eventually got under way Roger Stollery sailing his own UPROAR design won from Colin Goodman sailing James Edward’s GRUNGE and Austin Guerrier sailing his newly acquired V1 design from New Zealand. Roger also won Race 2 from ex-National 12 and Squib sailor, Tony Edwards and Darin Ballington also sailing GRUNGE’s.

Double World Fireball dinghy Champion, Colin Goodman won Race 3 from David Adam sailing a PRIME NUMBER and Tony. The next two races were won by Darin, which then put him top of the lunchtime leaderboard with a total of 15 points, from Tony with 18 and Colin with 19 points.

During lunch the wind became much more Easterly and Peter reset the whole course further down and across the lake to give a shorter windward leeward course that just fitted diagonally across the wider part of the lake.

Darin continued his winning streak, taking Races 6 & 7 from Tony and Colin respectively. Tony took Races 8 & 10 after letting Roy Stevens sailing a QUARK win Race 9. The penultimate race was won by Darin which left the three leading boats within 4 points of each other. The excitement built for the last race and the start sequence is shown in the photographs with Colin demonstrating the perfect start at the port end in clear air in the breezier part of the lake furthest away from the tree line on the far side. He turned this good start into a win of the three lap course, but it was not sufficient to overtake Darin overall,who finished second to take the famous Mermaid Trophy.

The only thing that spoiled this was strands of weed picked up by every competitor at some point during the racing.

At the prizegiving Darin thanked Peter and the Guildford club and mentioned how important such club open races are for honing the skills of the top skippers, who recently have done so well at international events with nine skippers in the top 20 of the World Marblehead Championship in Lake Garda. The learning curve whether it is in competing with your boat or being able to set a good course starts at your club.

As well as the Mermaid itself, other prizes included the Vic Cooney Trophy for the top veteran over 60, which went to Tony Edwards, the Ted Gearey award for the most improved skipper after Race 3, which went to ex IOM world champion, Trevor Binks and the furthest travelled which went to Roy Stevens from Middlesbrough.

This event was final event of the GAMES series and the Midgley Memorial Mug was awarded to Roger Stollery with a score for the best five events of the 441.6/500 points.

Results:

1st Darin Ballington Manor Park GRUNGE 22,

2nd Colin Goodman Coal House Fort GRUNGE 25,

3rd Tony Edwards Yeovil GRUNGE 26,

4th Roger Stollery Guildford UPROAR 42,

5th Roy Stevens Tri-services QUARK 63,

6th Trevor Binks Eastbourne PRIME NUMBER 65,

7th David Adam Woking PRIME NUMBER 67,

8th Alan Viney Guildford PRIME NUMBER 68,

9th Austin Guerrier Three Rivers V1 73,

10th John Smith Manor Park QUARK 81,

11th Terry Rensch Datchet QUARK 82,

12th Colin Walton Manor Park STARKERS 91,

13th Roy Pearson Guildford ROK 106,

14th Les Thorn Hawley Lakes PARADOX 112.

A great time was had at Abbey Meads Lake with the 16 races sailed in some of the best conditions that Guildford Model Yacht Club can offer. After a rather gloomy drizzley start, 8 competitors representing 3 clubs had a great deal of fun over the long beat and run course ideally placed parallel to the western control area. The fast planing runs were very exciting until the strongest gusts and power of the A rigs used by nearly all competitors drove bows under and rudders into the air.

The very first race gave an indication of how the results might turn out, as Peter Stollery, who was testing a new version of the UPROAR B rig managed to win despite having less power than the A rig competitors in the light airs. His father Roger, who was also testing a variation of the same offset pivot swing rig won Race 2 and Race 6, leaving Peter to win the other 6 races before lunch. The most consistent skipper apart from Peter was John Shorrock with five 2nd places and this took him to 2nd place on the leaderboard 7 points behind Peter, but 5 points ahead of Roger.

The sun then came out and the wind continued to increase during the afternoon, but 2 boats managed sail with their A rigs all day, although most were then in B. Mr Consistency, John Shorrock, sailing a QUARK managed to beat both the UPROARs to win Race 9, but then let them win all the remaining races. The wind direction gradually became more south-westerly as it increased and there were a few short breaks in the racing to pick up boats that had gear problems and had drifted into the bushes. Everyone enjoyed the incredible speed can be reached by these fast lightweight Marbleheads off the wind.

The disappointing entry from local clubs may be as a result of the closeness to next week’s MYA National Championship at Datchet, where there is a big entry from M&S District clubs. Those clubs not supporting this event missed a great opportunity to sail in breezy conditions at Abbey Meads and we hope that they will return to contribute to future events run by Guildford MYC later in the year.

The next M&S District Interclub event no. 4 and GAMES 8 is at Datchet on 7^th of August.

Results:

1st Peter Stollery Guildford UPROAR 15, 2nd Roger Stollery Guildford UPROAR 27, 3rd John Shorrock Datchet QUARK 30, 4th Alan Viney Guildford PRIME NUMBER 50, 5th Les Thorn Datchet PARADOX 65, 6th John Townsend Guildford ROK 76, 7th Phil Holliday Datchet QUARK  79, Peter Dunne Woking CRAZY TUBE TOO 81.

Unfortunately the Icicle Trophy has had to be cancelled for this Sunday 28 February.

Kindest regards

Roger

An appreciation by Roger Stollery

As some of you know already Don died on 6^th November 2015 after a long illness. He joined Guildford Model Yacht Club in 1978 and immediately became involved in its organisation. With his father-in-law George Hull he helped to create a huge amount of enthusiasm for our club and racing at our various lakes in the 1980s and 1990s; Willow Park, Coleford Bridge and finally at Abbey Meads in 1994.

This enthusiasm to improve our club racing led Don to create the club handicap system that we still use today to encourage members to improve their boat and/or their racing performance. As a result the best club trophies go to lots of different homes and give encouragement to those lower down the list. It is a great success and has been adopted by various clubs including Hampton Court and Gosport, which have had the same good experience. Don’s idea is now the basis for the Club Performance Improvement competition, part of a new 2016 MYA National Radio League: a very fitting legacy.

Don was more often than not involved in assisting the organisation and running of the major GMYC events. He held several posts in the club including being the newsletter editor, but what he loved most was being the Sailing Captain – organising the logistics for the event, getting the gear ready, laying the course etc and most importantly recording scores. He was very generous with his time and invited the club committee to his house in South Street, Farnborough for meetings. The club used to have several social events and along with others Don was always doing the cooking. He helped to set up the evening meetings at the Victoria Halls, Ash which had the effect of improving the club’s standard of racing. As well as acting as a guru on radio control equipment, he was very good at creating quizzes for those meetings and for the bimonthly newsletters to which he regularly contributed by reporting on a large number of club races.

Don loved his sailing and whilst trying hard didn’t mind where he finished, often somewhere in the middle of the fleet. Looking back on the records his best result was to finish 2^nd in an August club race in 1988 only beaten by a Swedish member, Lars Andren. In one of his last sails at Abbey Meads he finished 9^th out of 15 in the 2003 Veteran’s Nationals. However, there was one element of sailing that he was very good at and that was starting; he was always on the line at the gun and argued that this was the only time he could guarantee to be in the lead!

Finally, to sum up Don’s careful approach, his daughter Sarah sent me the following email:

“In tidying up some of Dad’s bits I have found a trophy he must have won with a note on it to “return to GMYC”; now the note on it says it was won in 1996, so twenty years later we were wondering if we could finally return it on his behalf! It is so Dad, nicely boxed up, all clearly labelled, yet still not returned, that it made me laugh out loud when I found it. I feel now it is my duty to finish the task he started all those years ago!”

Tony Edwards sailed his upgraded PARADOX very consistently to win this magnificent silver trophy engraved with winners going back to the1950s. Poole Radio Yacht Club at their superb sailing water at Longham Lakes ran 16  good races in 7-14mph variable WNW winds.

12 competitors from the South-Western, Met and Southern and Eastern districts enjoyed some exciting racing in B or C rigs, plenty of fast planing on the downwind legs and tricky wind shifts on the beats. These wind shifts and the poor visibility of the windward mark made rounding it difficult. Despite the inevitable contacts, penalty turns were carried out without any outstanding protests.

This event was a good example of how competitive older Marblehead designs can be if carefully prepared and upgraded. Robbie Nevitt’s PARADOX finished 3rd splitting the more modern boats, John Shorrock’s QUARK and Hugh McAdoo’s PRIME NUMBER, which finished 2nd and 4th. Rob Vice’s seriously upgraded Chris Dicks’ design MAGIC was 5th.

There were a few technical problems and boats going out of range twice caused PRO Peter Wiles to struggle against the wind in the electric powered rescue boat to recover boats sailing beautifully to windward to the far side of the lake. He used the power of the sails of the rescued boats to come back a lot quicker!

The prizewinners thanked Poole’s race team for running a good event and particularly Leslie Wiles for providing some absolutely superb cakes to go with the coffee that was available throughout the day. It is hoped that this event will have encouraged more sailors in the South-Western district to take up Marblehead racing and boost the numbers for the SW district Marblehead ranking event at Yeovil on  3rd of October. The next GAMES event is at Rotherham on 13 September.

Results:

1st Tony Edwards Yeovil PARADOX 22, 2nd John Shorrock Guildford QUARK 34, 3rd Robbie Nevitt Yeovil PARADOX 47, 4th Hugh McAdoo Guildford PRIME NUMBER 49, 5th Rob Vice Clapham 66, 6th Roger Stollery Guildford UPROAR 69, 7th Alf Reynolds Chelmsford PARADOX 73, 8th Dick Jobbins Solent CONSTELLATION 73, 9th John Bennett Eastleigh PARADOX 89, 10th Philip Udall Eastleigh CRAZY TUBE FREE 149, 11th CJ Vice Clapham 157, 12th Alan Veal Guildford ROAR EDGE 169.

Sailing 20 points above his handicap, Terry Rensch sailed a blinder with 2 firsts, 3 seconds and 4 thirds to win the Members Bowl in a 14 race club event. Although the light winds were tricky in the morning, there was enough wind in the afternoon blowing northerly straight down the lake to have some  good windward work and occasional planing off the wind. Well done Terry!

Entries are coming in well for the one day Marblehead Ranking Acorn Trophy with 15 confirmed so far, and with a few familiar names still to be added.