Grafham Winter Handicap Sunday 13 March 2005

On Sunday 13 March the final event of the Sprint 15 fleet winter series was held at Grafham in a pleasant force 3-4 Westerly breeze. 11 travellers joined 11 from the home club making an entry of 22.

Race officer, Peter Waghorn, set a large trapezoidal course and race one got underway with George Carter leading Steve Sawford, Stuart Snell and Mark Aldridge at the windward mark. Snell eased pass Sawford on the first reach as much of the fleet sailed too high - not noticing that it was a broad reach to the second mark. By the end of the first lap the Sprint 15s came through the line just as the Asymmetric fleet were starting which cause some panic manoeuvring among the Asymmetric boats. The Sprint 15 order on the second lap was G Carter, Snell, Bob Carter, Aldridge, Sawford, Erling Holmberg & Chris Black and this order prevailed for the rest of the race. G Carter progressively stretched out a huge lead from Snell who was well ahead of R Carter and it was only as you got to the minor places before the places were in contention near the end of the race.

After a quick lunch stop the second race was started in slightly less wind. Snell was determined to make no mistakes and led the charge from G Carter, Aldridge, Sawford, Keith Ball, Frank Sandalls and Paul Craft. On lap 2 Sawford moved up a place to third while Snell continued to hold off G Carter for all he was worth. At the end of the race Snell narrowly defeated G Carter followed by Sawford, Holmberg, R Carter, and Bob Rowntree, who had a good race after a recent layoff.

Thus, after an exciting days sailing, the leaders of G Carter & Snell were separated by a tiebreak based on shortest aggregate time as they both had a first & second place, with G Carter the eventual winner. Third place was also decided on a tiebreak. The fleet now rest for a short period until the Summer Traveller Series get under way at Thorpe Bay on 23/24 April.

For the full results, see the series table here.