2025 MD 6M Bournville RS&MBC results.

An unexpectedly large entry of 17 boats from 4 different clubs was received which included 7 Fleetwood sailors on an away day from the seaside. With 3 no-shows, 14 boats made the start line. Competitors were greeted by a light WSW breeze blowing primarily down the length of the pool. The Race Officer Roger Hopper (assisted by the race team of Ian Green and Peter Court) set a course from a lengthened start line from a buoy close to the bank to a shore post, beating to a port rounded first mark, across to port rounded wing mark, run down to a gate and then beat to the finish between the first two marks.

Right from the word go, the frequent, often short lived, wind shifts led to large changes in fortunes with most skippers having mixed results. Unfortunately, two sailors had to drop out after just two races – John Burgoine with terminal winch(?) problems and Alan Farnsworth who spent much of the day with his head in his historic craft having gone through two winches and a rudder servo.

Because of the nature of the conditions, consistency began to tell and by lunchtime, Shaun Holbeche had established a strong overall lead by grinding out a string of hard-fought wins. Many other sailors had results at or near the front, but it was Lester Gilbert, Simon Richardson, Derek Priestley and Chris Cook leading the pack with Lester showing the most consistency.

As the day went on, the wind tended to back more frequently rendering the beats more port biased and to generally become more fickle. Attempts to tweak the course accordingly met with little success. In a dying breeze, proceedings were brought to a close after 15 races – the 3.30pm cut-off having been reached.

The final results are here: MD 6M Series Race 4

Reporter and PRO Roger Hopper, scores by Mark Dicks.