MYA MD DF95 Open Rudyard Lake SC Results.

Yesterday Friday 6^th June saw 17 skippers gather at Rudyard Lake SC for their first DF95 Open event. Yes, we know it was a Friday, but that was chosen to fit in with the host sailing clubs activities. Our PRO for the day was Dennis Birchenhall who on the run up to the event had capped the entry at 20 boats to ensure that they could all sail as a single fleet. In fact, we could have possibly had more entries start as we did have 20 registered initially.

From a personal point of view, it was an approximately 1 hour 45-minute drive for me in what started out being a very wet drive up, so I did not actually arrive until 9:20am. The venue is a new one to me and it was the first time the club had hosted an Open event on behalf of the Midland District.

The lake is situated in a valley with fairly steep sides and upon finding the club thanks to the MYA logo signs they had put on the drive down to the club carpark, I found that things were well underway. All competitors had been reserved carparking spaces on the lower level and the sailing club was already busy with people booking in and getting their early morning coffees. All competitors were given name badges to wear, which was a nice touch, the race team were also wearing badges.

All skippers were required to wear buoyancy aids near the water, as the venue has a concrete slope leading down to the water, more of which was exposed due to the recent drop in the water level. The lake was originally constructed to supply water to the canal systems.

Dennis (PRO) called the skippers together for the initial briefing and he welcomed us all to Rudyard Lake SC, mentioning that apart from launch and recovery all skippers must remain bankside and not on the floating dock. There would be an official lunch break of 45 minutes and if you wanted any hot food, please order it from the café now so that it would be ready to collect at lunch.

The course that had been laid out was a nice wide start line mid-way up the beat with a spreader mark to windward and a gate down wind, two laps and finish through the start line. The wind was playing nice coming down the length of the lake, which made for a wind created chop, and the early rain had gone away.

Race 1 got underway and some of the boats in their A rig were finding it difficult to tack in the chop. Tacking close to the windward mark in those conditions lead to several boats getting washed down onto the mark, which resulted in them losing several places to those who overstood and got round cleanly. Once the last boat had cleared the finishing line Dennis and Dave said they were going to put in two extra marks to be used as the new finish line, this was done so it would be easier to see the jib numbers as it was closer to the bank.

Peter Baldwin (172) started with three straight race wins demonstrating good speed to windward which got him away from the chasing pack, mid fleet was very close racing.  Mike Raine was the top local skipper, and he was well up with the visiting skippers putting in some consistent results.

John and Liz Tushingham turned up just before lunchtime to have a look at the venue whilst breaking their journey down to the weekends DF TT series. It was good to have a catch-up with them both again.

Most skippers gathered in the sailing club for lunch where we were able to get hot drinks and food etc. I took the opportunity to meet Neil Goodhead from the South Staffordshire SC, another new club to us here in the MYA Midland District. I welcomed him to the district, and we chatted about their venue and the sailing the club was doing. Neil said that at the moment the water level was down so they could not really hold and Open event for us yet, but they would consider something next year.

It’s really good that we are picking up more interest in model yacht racing from the sailing clubs as it benefits both sides of the sport and it gives us model sailors access to some really good facilities.

After lunch we were back on the water with race 6, which went to Neil Webb (286) in a dominant fashion by more than half a leg, he then followed this up with a further win in race 7. Race 8 went to Mike Raine, and it was very tight between to two of them overall. Take a look at the results for the scores in each race.

I only managed to stay until race 10 as my rollator had broken one of its brackets and so I was not able to get about any longer. I gave my apologies to the race team and headed home.

Racing finished after 12 races and obviously the race team completed the scoring and did a prize giving. From the results that I was sent by Dave Ernest late last night I can see that Peter Baldwin had a dominant win overall closely followed by the next four places being only separated by only one point each.

I would like to thank all the team of volunteers who helped in the preparation and running of yesterdays event, not least was Dennis Birchenhall who when asked last year if they would be prepared to host an event said yes. We liaised a lot on the run up to the event by email and then he stuck his hand up and said yes, he would be the PRO. Then there was Anita who I believe did a lot of the computer work in preparation, and the race scorers who used Sailwave to score the event as it was known to them, thanks.

Here is a copy of the final results: Sailwave results for MYA Open Meeting June 6th 2025 at Rudyard Lake Sailing Club 2025