Frensham Pond Ten Rater Tankard Open 22nd March 2023 – Report and Results

This year’s event followed the same as last year in that it was combined with an edition of the Marblehead GAMES series. There were 16 entrants although unfortunately two were unable to make it. There were six 10 Raters and eight Marbleheads on the day and it was decided to split the fleet by class of boat rather than combine them as in previous years.

The day dawned with rain and strong winds, but fortunately the rain stopped before racing started. Although the wind remained very gusty everyone chose to start with A rigs. Race Officer Nick Royse set a windward/leeward course, but with the predominant SW wind direction decided to open with a downwind start. Five races of each class were run before the break for lunch. For the afternoon session some skippers opted to change down to B rigs, and the leeward buoys were brought a little closer, assisting some of the more visually challenged skippers! The sudden gusts did catch some boats out resulting in a few collisions, but this didn’t prevent there being much close competitive racing. In all a total of 11 races in each class were achieved.

The Tankard fleet was dominated by close competition between Nick Morgan’s Diamond and John Sturgeon’s Bentley. John was in the lead up to the last race, but Nick managed to win the last race to secure the Tankard trophy, with Roger Pearce’s Defector coming third.

In the Marblehead fleet, David Cole with his Grunge produced a consistent set of races to win from Rob Vice’s UP, with Paul Tickner’s Grunge in third place. The day was raced in good spirits and enjoyed by all, concluding with the ‘famous’ Frensham tea.

Photographs taken by Tony Schlaeppi