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The weekend of the 10th and 11th July saw the fourth annual Regatta taking place at Leigh and Lowton S.C. With a good forecast, both for the sun and the wind, the signs were showing a good weekend's sailing.

On Saturday morning as the sailors assembled, the wind was blowing from the south, not the best direction for Pennington Flash. Race Officer Mike Baldwin set a course avoiding some of the wind shadow from the shore using a large proportion of the lake with three beats keeping the fleets on their toes. All three starts got away cleanly and the 28 strong handicap fleet was led around the course by Louise McKeand and Cathy Partington from LLSC in a RS400, followed closely by Mike Webster from Delph in a Phantom. The top five slots were held by these two classes of boat throughout the race with Mike Webster finally coming out on top when the corrected times were calculated. Thirteen boats contested the Laser fleet with some close racing at the top. Richard Catchpole and Stuart Belfield led the field at the end of the first lap with Chester Candish and Andy Green in third and fourth places respectively, all from the home club. By the end of the second lap Andy had pulled through to second place with only seconds between the top three boats but it was Richard who held onto the lead at the finish gun with only 20 yards separating these three helms on the water after an hour of full on, tight racing. The junior fleet was again 13 strong with a mixture of Laser Radials, Toppers and Optimists with a Hobie 405 thrown in for good measure. The Lasers dominated the race on the water but it was Bobby Hewitt who took first place with Kirk Knights from LLSC taking second from John Wingeatt also from LLSC coming third.

After a fine lunch from the galley, the fleet returned to the water for two back-to-back races in the afternoon. With a dropping wind, the course was set slightly shorter and the Handicap start saw two boats OCS who unfortunately did not return. Again Louise and Cathy led from the front with Sam and Caroline Sutton-Reid in a RS400  and Mike Webster chasing them. Again, Mike took the result on corrected time. The Laser fleet, eagerly led by Howard Green, stormed across the line about 3 seconds before the start gun to be pulled back by a General Recall and a 10 minute wait until their next start. The junior fleet was won this time by Tom with Kirk in second place and John in third. When the Lasers started again, it was Andy Green who led from the beginning, with Richard and Stuart fighting out for second and third position, Stuart finally taking the second slot at the finish.

In race 3, Louise and Cathy didn’t have such a good start and were fourth on the water at the end of the first lap with the RS400’s of Joe Hartinan and Nathan Waring, the Parker brothers, Martin and Liam and the RS200 1311 with Alisatair Norris and Charlie (Charlotte) Marsden close behind them. However, Louise and Cathy battled their way through to the front taking the finish gun first on the water and first on corrected time as well. In fact, the RS 400’s dominated this race taking the first three places with Mike Webster not having such a good race this time, finishing in fifth place. In the Lasers, the racing was still tight but it was Chester who took first place with a thrilling finish between Andy and Stuart. As they rounded the leeward mark, Stuart was just ahead of Andy and made his way towards the line close hauled. Andy, spotting an opportunity, dropped away slightly and headed towards the committee boat end of the line, footing freer and faster. As they crossed the line, Andy took the honours about a foot ahead of Stuart. Thrilling stuff and a credit to his tactics. At just 14 years old, Andy shows maturity on the water that many of us adults would be proud to display. I’m sure we shall see a lot of him in the Laser fleets nationally over the next few years.

At the prizegiving, Mike Baldwin thank everyone for attending with a special thank you to all those who had supported the day on the committee boat, safety boats and especially Fiona White who had worked during the day, loading the results into the computer. Without all these people the day would not have gone so smoothly. The winners of the fleets at the end of the day were Mike Webster in his Phantom taking the Handicap Fleet, Andy Green in the Lasers and Kirk Knights in the Junior Fleet. Liam Kirby was awarded the junior ‘Endeavour’ prize for finishing all three races despite only starting to sail this year.

After the prizegiving, Ann and Helen, along with Ian and other helpers provided a wonderful BBQ which was followed by the traditional bottle boat race. Unlike previous years, the wind didn’t play ball and the course had to be reset from the shore to the middle mark. The winner by a wide margin was John Wingeatt with second place going to young Jack Exeley with his Tesco bag powered catamaran.

At 8.00pm Paul got the fancy dress disco going and there was a wide range of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ fancy dress costumes on show from Mark Lowe in his ringlets and fancy jacket to Chester in his eye shadow (yes, that’s right, eye shadow!) and fancy hat. The winner of the male ‘Best Dressed Pirate’ was Chester and the female ‘Best Dressed Pirate’ was Gill.

Sunday morning greeted the sailors with a strong breeze and the more hung over youth sailors used this as an excuse not to go out on the water. With these dropouts and the conflicts of the World Cup Final and the British Grand Prix, the fleets were a little down in numbers compared to previous years. However, 22 boats made it to the start for the Handicap Fleet, 11 in the Lasers and 8 in the Junior Fleet. The wind was blowing from the west, straight down Pennington Flash and when the committee boat had gone out there were 18” waves at the leeward end of the course. The wind strength was gusting 20 knots and a number of sailors started but were unable to complete the course. Mike Webster again showed his dominance on handicap, closely followed by Greg Marshal and Chris Tooley in their RS200 who revelled in the conditions. Iain and Sarah Yardley had a great race as well, finishing third on corrected time. Louise had swapped her crew from Saturday and was sailing with Dave Exeley but they could not produce the same style of result as the girls had on the Saturday. In the Juniors, Megan Griffiths sailing a Laser 4.7 showed that this was the right rig of choice as she held her own against the Radials and Andy Green again dominated the Lasers taking his second bullet of the weekend.

After lunch, the wind had dropped slightly and the fleets increased in numbers as the two back-to-back races were run. A course with a longer, truer run was provided after the RS400’s felt that they were missing out.  This time it was Steve White (who had had to retire in race 1) in his Solo who showed the Handicap fleet how to sail with Stuart Belfield, now sailing his RS400 with his wife Cath, taking second, Mike Webster having to make do with third. Bobby Hewitt in the Junior Fleet took another first place in his Optimist and Andy Green added another bullet to his tally with Paul Heath in second and Andy’s Dad, Howard, in third. The last race saw the numbers drop dramatically as many sailors decided that for once the footy would draw them away with 11 boats dropping out. This time, the Solos dominated the Handicap fleet with first place going to Brian Holt, second to Mike Broatch, third to Alan Catto and fourth to Steve White. In the Lasers Paul Heath took the first gun with Tom Keegan, newly returned from his time abroad, in second and Andy Green in third.

At the prizegiving, Mike Baldwin again thanked all those who had supported the event in the roles of committee and safety boats. The prizes were awarded to Mike Webster for the Handicap, Bobby Hewitt in the Juniors with Lee Knight getting the ‘Endeavour’ prize and the Laser fleet was won by Andy Green. The John Barnes Plate was also awarded for the helm in the Handicap and Laser fleets who, over the six races of the weekend, had the lowest score. This award also went to Andy who recorded three firsts, two seconds and a third. Well done Andy. Make sure you keep the plate polished!