2025 IOMMDCS&C R3 Mac Colyer Trophy, at Bournville RS&MBC results.
In the week running up to the 2025 Mac Colyer IOM district champion event at Bournville RS&MBC the entries were rolling in which was great to see. We ended up with 22 entries who arrived on Sunday morning with seven of those new skippers to the series, and seven different midland clubs were represented.
The Bournville RS&MBC club house looked fantastic with a newly painted floor in grey and a large compass in red painted over the top, great work guys. I arrived early and the doors were open and the tea urn already warming up. The heat board had already been created by Stephen Hodgkinson, and the seeding heats were on it ready for the skippers to check which heat they would be starting in at registration.
Bill Green (PRO) and Peter Hopkins were outside looking at the course options, unfortunately the wind such as it was, appeared to be coming from the east, which is over, or round the clubhouse. This makes it difficult to set a course at Bournville as it is almost directly across the lake. This necessitates a zig zag pattern to get any kind of windward element in the first half of the lap. Bill called the skippers briefing at 9:45am mentioning that this is a public park and to please be mindful of any visitors. He also said that whilst the wind direction was not conducive to the best course direction it was the same for everyone.
Racing commenced at 10:00am with seeding race one using a start line tucked in the corner by the bridge. It was very light at this stage and the boats that managed to get out to the right-hand side first were just able to get around the first windward mark before the port boats that were taking the shorter route could get there. They then headed off on a broad reach to a leeward starboard hand rounding mark to have a second beat back across the lake where they took that to port and then off down the lake to a gate, with the final leg back to the start area to finish between two buoys. The first seeding race went to Bill Culshaw (21) with home skipper Roger Hopper (198) close second. The second seeding race went to John Burgoine (35) with Don Munro (19) second.
Vic Bellerson updated the heat-board and racing commenced with 14 boats on the start line which was a little tight and that is why we were using heats rather than starting all 22 boats as a single fleet. The winner of the first race was Nick Probyn (60) sailing an Isis design, it was well suited to the light conditions, and he managed to hold off Darin Ballington (98) with his Britpop.
Vic again updated the heat-board to the final format of nine boats in the A fleet and thirteen in the B fleet as we were using the four-boat promotion variant of HMS. Race three went to Dorian Crease (160) with is Britpop, with Bill Culshaw (21) second and Nick Probyn (60) third.
After the start of race four we had the first of three luckily short rain showers, this tended to back the wind a bit towards the north, and so the course was able to be changed to almost straight down the lake. It did not stay that way though as there was always an element of east in it so you could reach down the lake and back sometimes. That’s the challenge of sailing in a city park, with trees, hedges and other obstacles making reading the wind direction a masterclass.
A lunch break was called just after 12:30 and everyone gathered in the clubhouse for sandwiches which were provided by the club as part of the race entry fee, and plenty of brews all round. The midland committee held a meeting and approved a funding grant for some safety matting for the Lincoln RSC club’s landing stages. Were also spoke to several of the other midland clubs’ skippers to sound out what their club plans were for dates and events in 2026.
It is hoped that we as a district can hold midland district series for the IOM, DF95 and 6M again next year.
Racing recommenced and around 14:00 you could feel the temperature appreciably rise to above 20c and everyone discarded their lightweight jackets and radio muffs, summer had returned along with a visiting ice-cream van. He did a brisk trade to both skippers and the public.
Race six saw Darin (98) with a dominant win with Philip Davenport (46) and Rob Radbourne (17) completing the top three. By race eight it was very tight at the top with the two discards having been applied, it was going to be a race between Dorian Crease (160) and Darin Ballington (98). Race nine which was to be the last one of the day came down to the finishing order between the two with Dorian (160) taking first place and Darin (98) taking second almost on the line.
Overall, yes it was a challenging wind direction, yes there were a few contacts between the boats which were inevitable in the shifty conditions, but generally the whole event was sailed in a calm competitive manner with the top skippers rising to the top by being more consistent. That is not to say that there were no other performances of note, one of which was Stephen Brown (129) with his Blitz who did just that in race seven by taking the win.
So, we come to the final results, as I said at the beginning of the report, we had seven skippers who had not raced in the series before and Bournville RS&MBC mentioned that we need to encourage more participation in the series from the travelling skippers, so they offered a prize to the top finisher at todays event. There were:
10th Philip Davenport, Huntingdon MYC.
15th Peter Court, Bournville RS&MBC.
17th Simon Cornes, Rudyard Lake SC.
18th Andrew Johnson, Huntingdon MYC.
20th Andrew Backhouse, Birmingham MYC.
21st Alan Farnsworth, Bournville RS&MBC.
22nd Ian Green, Bournville RS&MBC.
Congratulations to Philip, and the others, and we hope to see you again at a future midland district event.
The overall winner was Dorian Crease by one point from Darin Ballington in second and Bill Culshaw in third. A full set of results is here: 2025 IOMMDCS&C R2 Mac Colyer Trophy
Thanks to Bournville RS&MBC for hosting the event and Bill Green (PRO), Vic Bellerson (heat board), Graham Robinson (finish line scoring), and Peter Hopkins (observer duty all day) and Stephen Hodgkinson for pre event paperwork and arranging the catering.
