WOW - What A Weekend Down The Gunfleet
Sunday, May 19, 2013 - 22:04
The Weekend of 18 & 19 May went with a real swing down at the Gunfleet Sailing Club. On Saturday evening it was a complete sell-out for the Eurovision Karaoke. The Clubhouse rocked as the Cadets and Otters sung some of the most recent hit records, and it rolled as the older members leapt into some classics of the 1960’s. Couples got-up and serenaded each other and few will ever forget Ken’s rendition of “Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire”. And half way through the evening the members tucked into Bacon Baguettes and Magnum Ice creams, thanks to the hard work of the rear Commodore and his Galley Crew. A Eurovision Quiz followed, and a sweepstake on the winner of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest brought a great evening to a close.
Then on Sunday morning members of the Gunfleet Sailing Club jostled on the line, ready for the start of the race for the Hertford County Shield. With a force two to three easterly wind blowing it seemed the obvious choice to commence the race on starboard tack but Simon Clarke and Emily Cossens chose to keep clear of the rest of the fleet, which were all hogging the Outer Distance Mark, and start on port tack at the shore end in their Scorpion. As they neatly cut through the pack they headed out to sea with a strengthening ebb tide helping them on their way to the Kingscliff buoy. Soon the other competitors went about, Paul Stanton being the first to take this course, and gave chase. Eddie White, on the other hand, doggedly stuck to starboard tack in his Solution and slipped effortlessly in with the top end of the fleet as they all rounded the mark. There then followed a broad reach out to the Seaward buoy, a gybe, and then another broad reach down to the AWS mark, before a fetch out to Seaward and a run down the coast to the St. Michael’s buoy. Stanton dominated the Lasers despite Andy Dunnett pushing him all the way, whilst Yvonne Gough dropped back in her Laser, having rigged it with a radial sail in anticipation of the wind freshening, only to witness the breeze getting lighter. At the end of the first lap John Tappenden in his Blaze had gained a very small lead on his nearest rival with third and fourth place also being hotly contested between the Scorpion and Paul Davis in his Solution. However, disaster was to strike the former during the second lap when the spinnaker halyard became parted on the reach from Seaward to AWS. With the desperate need to use the kite on the run from Seaward to St. Michael’s Clarke had no choice but to capsize the boat to allow Cossens to rethread the halyard. This lost the pair valuable time and dropped them back to seventh place. On the other hand Tappenden hung on to his tenuous lead and ended up taking the Shield by just 5 seconds.
Results – Hertford County Shield:
1. Blaze – John Tappenden
2. RS600 – Ken Potts
3. Solution – Paul Davis
