The Windsport Catparts Sprint 15 Traveller Series 2010 Report

The Windsport Catparts Traveller Series for 2010 was won by Kevin Dutch who beat Erling Holmberg in a nail biting finish. Holmberg won the standard format series as Dutch had sailed some of his events in Sport mode, but no one completed enough events in Sport mode to qualify for the Sport Mode traveller trophy. The Queen Mary duo of Gordon Goldstone and George Stephen took third and fourth respectively with Nick Dewhirst fifth and Eamonn browne sixth.

The season kicked off at Herne Bay with 8 travellers being joined by just one local at an event which was shared with the Shearwaters and the Shadows. Over half the competitors took part in Sport mode and this caused a shake-up from the usual positions. Saturday was quite windy but it was just possible to do a single race on Sunday in very light winds. Kevin Dutch sailing Sport made no mistakes to win from the una-rigs of Ben Skull and Gordon Goldstone. Skull had only just bought his boat so this bodes well for the future.

The second event of the series was the Southern Championships at Thorpe Bay where 9 travellers joined 14 locals – it was nice to see 3 travel from the nearby Marconi Club. Once again it was good winds on the Saturday, which dropped on Sunday. 2009 National Champion, Kyle Stoneham, made no mistakes in the wind on Saturday notching up 3 guns but he was less good in the lighter winds on Sunday allowing both Erling Holmberg and Dan Henderson to take a gun each. Never-the-less Stoneham had done enough to win the event and to take the Southern Championship.

At Seasalter there were 9 travellers and 15 locals at this club which has staged a dramatic revival in it’s Sprint 15 fleet under the enthusiastic leadership of local action man, Steve Willis. Ray Gall made the trip to try out his DX sail but it was local man, Kevin Dutch who led for most of the weekend, although he did let both Eamonn Brown and Erling Holmberg take guns. Dutch was unbeatable with a race to spare so he also had a play with the DX sail in the final race.

The wind blew both days at Carsington and the young fit Robin Newbold cleaned up while the older guys struggle to keep up. The were 8 travellers and just 3 locals taking part and the wind blew both days with some tricky gusts catching out the sailers with a quick swim here and there. Newbold made no mistakes with 4 guns taking the Northern championship and leaving Holmberg and Charles Watson fighting for runner up spot.

The last event was at Grafham where 22 travellers were joined by 8 locals for the Inland Championships. Once again the winds blew on Saturday and dropped for the Sunday which seemed like the pattern for much of the year. The una-rig boats of Kevin Kirby and Mark Aldridge slugged it out with consistent performances and both ended up with seven points but it all might have been different if the Flying Dutchman (Kevin Dutch) had not missed his hook and fell in and retired in the second race. As it was Kirby took the Inland Trophy on count-back leaving Aldridge rueing the day he sold Kirby his boat (the sought after 1966).

We now look forward to the ever popular winter series of one day races which kicks off on 6 November at Stewartby. We will be promoting the series by giving a raffle ticket to each entry at each event and at the end of the series we will draw from a hat for the winner of a new mainsail. The mainsail has been kindly provided by Windsport.