2025 IOM Ranking 1&2 at Scarborough – Report and Results

Scarborough Model Yacht Club, Wykeham Water

March 15th/16th 2025

Scarborough Model Yacht Club welcomed 55 skippers to Wykeham Lake to start the season of 2025 ranking events which this year has a little extra emphasis with the forthcoming World Championships to be held at Datchet Water in May 2026.

A high calibre fleet passed compliance checks and by Saturday race day, the three heats were ready for the off. Sadly the wind had other ideas, and the AP flag was deployed to allow the wind to build and settle after the initial Westerly breeze died. After some considerable changes to the course, racing got under way approximately 45 minutes late in a light shifty breeze that was clearly still being thermally driven – the North Sea coastline 5 miles to the east was 5 degrees warmer than at the lake and the predicted NE air steam apparently didn’t fancy coming to join us! The wind did eventually start to move right as the land warmed in the sunshine initially to the NW before breeze finally made it past north requiring further course changes and racing restarted in a freshening NNE which continued to move right, at times with a considerable component of East in the mix. The 2 recovery boats were kept constantly busy with mark adjustments throughout most of the day but RO Derek P managed to get 6 completed races in just before navigation lights were needed and that was with a half hour lunch break included as well.

The prize giving took place in the Water Park café with a good portion of the fleet in very good spirits having managed to catch the last of the England 6 nations rugby match being shown on the large screen tv which was then used to show some video footage from the days racing.

Opening the formalities, Scarborough Model Yacht Club Chairman Gary Parkin, expressed his grateful thanks to all that had made the event possible – SMYC members, Gareth Davies and all his teams at North Yorkshire Water Park, Derek Priestley, Peter and Judith Baldwin, Damian Ackroyd, and Sharron Plested.

Brad Gibson sailing his own ‘PostPUNK!’ design attained the top step of the podium with another trade mark consistent performance and was a clear winner on 10pts taking home a bottle of Flagship Malt Whisky kindly sponsored by Spirit of Yorkshire, Hunmanby, with Chris Harris 2nd on 23pts and Josh King 3rd on count back with 27pts.

A good few stayed on for the social event enjoying a selection of locally sourced pies or freshly made in-house pizza.

Day 2 started remarkable similar to Saturday with a thermally driven westerly breeze. The race team nervously waited for the forecast NW to develop that was supposed to prevail for some of the morning session before moving further right to become a much more stable strengthening north easterly. In reality, the overnight frosts again driving the temperature gradient this time worked in favour for the race team. The racing started right on schedule and continued on the western side of the peninsula allowing 4 heats to be completed with only very minor course changes needed. The wind then began to shut down again and with AP flag deployed, there was a 50 minute break in racing whilst the wind obligingly moved right and with another 50p pushed into the wind machine slot, racing got underway in the expected north easterly breeze.

The fleet then enjoyed probably the best racing of the weekend with wind direction now stable and at times at the upper end of number 1 rig. The usual problem of port tack boats barging at the windward mark reared its head again and the “naughty buoy” mark was again deployed for the second day to try to persuade the fleet to adhere to the rules and prevent the carnage that at times prevailed on Saturday. Whilst there was some degree of success with this on Saturday, the problem continued and the race committee decided that a firmer approach was required. RO Roy Stevens stopped racing and called all skippers to an additional briefing at which the fleet were informed that the “naughty buoy” mark would be removed leaving a standard windward/leeward course and with increased monitoring of boats at the top mark in place, the race committee was now likely to use all options available to them for boats continuing to create problems – a noticeable improvement was thankfully forthcoming.

With 5 races completed, the prize giving again took place in the Water Park café with a good hot drink taken by many. The overall race results were much closer today with only a single point separating the podium positions but Josh King sailing the BG designed “POP!” moved up 2 steps of the podium from yesterday taking 1st place on 9pts and another bottle of Flagship Malt Whisky courtesy of Spirit of Yorkshire. Rob Walsh was 2nd on 10pts and Graham Elliott 3rd on 11pts.

SMYC Chairman Gary Parkin closed the event thanking all for making the journey to Scarborough and looked forward to welcoming everyone back to compete in future events at the venue.

Results