2025 MYA IOM National Championships – Report and Results

Hosted by Lincoln Radio Sailing Club

Spoiler Alert: Brad Gibson wins the 2025 MYA IOM National Championships.

As a headline goes this is not a significant departure from previous results. Brad continues to demonstrate his skill in radio sailing, diligence in boat preparation and concentration on the racecourse. Another excellent display by Brad, well done.

The real story for 2025 is about the further recovery of the sport and class since Covid-19 and the commitment of the Lincoln Radio Sailing Club (LRSC) members to produce a venue and event worthy of hosting the IOM Nationals. The story of 2025 started back in November 23, when the stand in commodore, Pete Walters, stood up at the LRSC AGM and said that he thought the club should offer to host the IOM Nationals in 2025. This one statement had a few hurdles to clear, more than even Pete envisaged at the time, but the first was to get member’s buy-in. Pete was adamant that it would not happen unless all in the room agreed to support the bid; this they did.

Second hurdle was the date, it was agreed with the MYA that no later than mid-May would be suitable for the venue, so early Bank Holiday in May was set. Unfortunately, the international classes decided to put the Marblehead Worlds over this weekend, so the date was moved forward to early April. The IOM class then put their Europeans in early April, so the date was moved again to the only suitable date. Easter 2025. This created hurdle three, will skippers attend?

Entries steadily grew to an entry level of 67, although late withdrawals led to 58 skippers registering, not as good as hoped but given the time of year a great turnout. The encouraging element of the entry is that this continues to include fresh faces to the class, and a wide range of ages from 12 to …. we leave this blank but let us say they have seen plenty of Easters! It was wonderful to see competitors from all six districts of the MYA travel to the event with 14 rookies attending their first IOM Nationals.

True to their word the club members fully embraced the event with the “Wednesday Gang” preparing the grounds beautifully, repainting the buoys, laying out the camping pitches and even giving the clubhouse a lick of paint. Early arrivals would have seen members erecting the marquee, helping with registration, and preparing for event measurement, this event was truly supported by the membership. Chris Elliott had volunteered to head up the event measurement and devised a simple random system of selecting which rig to check measure, although possibly an excuse to use his 3D printer for the discs, the circular disc selected gave the rig to be attached to the boat. This did highlight an issue with a few boats and gave an education to some owners around the measurement process, some of whom were seen scurrying around looking for weight to add to their boats. Anyone with spare lead could name their price on Friday afternoon!

One benefit of the Easter date was that almost all boats were registered and checked on Friday allowing racing to commence promptly on Saturday morning. The forecast for the three days was spot on, two days of sunshine and breeze, with a final day of frustration, but no one was bothered about Monday when they arrived on Saturday for the first heats. Although not a perfect direction the easterly breeze allowed PRO Darin and ARO Pete to set a course with a long first leg creating good separation and enough shifts to give plenty of opportunity for the fleet. Sailing in three heats of over 20 in each heat the basic format would stay the same over Saturday and Sunday. Pete was kept busy in the boat, tweaking the course, with the odd boat retrieval when the breeze built to the top of A rig. Saturday saw the completion of six races, 18 heats of the highest quality sailing, Brad was sailing beautifully but the pack behind him were chasing hard, with Josh King (26), Tim Hand (134), Pete Stollery (139) and Derek Priestley (67) all pushing him. Day one saw wins for Brad, Peter Baldwin (63), Chris Harris (186) in the seeding races and Josh and Derek in the later races. Many others had good or bad days, but all had a story to tell in the evening at the local pub.

Unbeknown to skippers, this had been the fourth hurdle to overcome, when at the 11th hour the landlord informed the club that the chef and catering team had left the pub, however, he would sort something out and get back to us. What he provided was “The Lincolnshire Fryer” a mobile fish and chip van with a menu of local pies, Grimsby fish and plenty of sauces all cooked in the mobile chip van just in time. It was fantastic, all eaten in the pub marquee and accompanied by a few drinks and plenty of banter. Thanks to the The Railway Inn, you delivered. (phew!)

Sunday was much the same with another six races completed (18 heats), the fleet board team of Jen Hand, Judith Baldwin and Sharon Plested continued to provide quick turnaround of the heats and combined with Anne Dennis finishing and Colin Helliwell on the computer, kept everyone updated and informed of their position. The use of google drive and the club website allowed instant visibility of the race results around the globe; an amazingly simple and effective way of keeping everyone informed. Monty the dog, and Garry Benson were an invaluable aid in finding and tagging the observers for each heat, the skippers should also be commended, as there were no heats delayed due to a lack of observers, thank you for this. The only person who was underemployed was Lester Gilbert our protest chair, he and the race team were happy about this, with only occasional discussions and involvement during the whole weekend, although his quiet confidence and guidance helped, and avoided further disputes. Thank you, Lester, and Garry, for giving your time.

With so much going on, its’ difficult to pick out many of the individual results, but the race wins went to Austin Guerrier (06), Craig Richards (112), Brad and Peter Baldwin with consistent sailing from Mark Gollison (155) seeing our American guest rise nicely up the leader board.

As the previous day, PRO Darin stopped the days sailing around 6.00pm after 8hrs of racing. Skippers retired to their hotels, campsites, or vans after a long day, looking forward to more of the same on the final day.

We won’t dwell too long on Monday’s weather, other than to say that the wind direction and strength allowed only one further race to be completed, the introduction of the forecast rain and complete absence of breeze by early afternoon left the race team little alternative than to call an end to the racing at 2.30pm. The single race completed was won by Chris Harris, but the highlight of the day, and possibly the whole weekend was when Noah McIntosh (age 12) finished in the promotion places in the final heat of the event to a round of applause from the skippers. Sadly, the wind gods denied Noah the chance to compete in B heat. However, his superb attitude, enthusiasm, maturity, and ability were complimented by many, and for this he was awarded the Captain David Perkins Trophy for the event, and a mention in the winner’s acceptance speech. We are sure that he will only get better and look forward to seeing him at many future events.

The club’s landlords, Mary and Sally kindly presented the main prizes, with Darin presenting David Lapes (56), the Radox Trophy, a packet of bath salts for the most heats sailed in and Mark Gollison a pair of Lincolnshire mugs with sweets for the long trip back to the US.

In accepting the winner’s trophy, Brad thanked the event team, acknowledged the competition of his fellow skippers, and mentioned the quality of young skippers who he knows will be challenging him in a few years.

The full results are on the sheet below and can also be found on the LRSC website.

So, as PRO what have I learnt:

1. We have a great club at Lincoln.
2. Give your best at each event, and the skippers will return.
3. Surround yourself with volunteers who are better than you at their roles.
4. Do not take yourself too seriously, it is only a game.

Final words, must be about the fantastic volunteers this weekend, from those who have spent time preparing the event, to those who stayed behind after the event to drop the marquee in the rain.

Thank you to every one of you.

If I leave anyone off, I apologise but in no order the race team were:

PRO- Darin Ballington – LRSC
ARO/Boatman – Pete Walters – LRSC
HMS/Computer – Colin Helliwell – LRSC
HMS/Fleet board – Jen Hand – LRSC
HMS/Fleet board – Judith Baldwin
Start line – Sharon Plested
Finisher – Anne Dennis
Protest Chair – Lester Gilbert – Broads RYC
Observer Marshall – Garry Benson – Fleetwood MY&PBC
Bacon Butties – Richard, Judith, and Jess Jutsum – LRSC

List of Winners:

2025 MYA IOM National Champion – Brad Gibson – Birkenhead RS&PC
2025 MYA IOM Veteran Champion – Derek Priestley – Fleetwood MY&PBC
2025 MYA IOM Junior Champion – Oliver Stollery – Guildford MYC
2025 MYA IOM Vulturesoft Trophy Winner – Paul Plested – Birkenhead RS&PC
2025 David Perkins Trophy Winner – Noah McIntosh – Birkenhead RS&PC

Photo Credits:

All boat images Jennifer Gollison – find more on Facebook: HERE

All other images: Jen Hand/Nigel Barrow

Please visit the Lincoln Radio Sailing Website for further images as we receive them. www.lincolnradiosailingclub.com

If you have images you wish to share, please send a link to ashbyroadeast@gmail.com for inclusion on the website.

See you all at Datchet for Ranking 3&4 – 5^th & 6^th July.