ND Final round & Overall Results
You might have started to think winter was behind us, but hold on! The cold weather and a biting NE breeze made a comeback for the final round of the MYA Northern District IOM Winter Series held at Weecher Reservoir, home of the Keighley club, high up on the Yorkshire moors. This was a hastily re-scheduled event cancelled two weeks previously due to heavy snow drifts. Turnout was a little low at only nine boats, but the tight, figure of eight style courses and a test of everyone’s distance judgement at the leeward mark kept the racing tight with much place changing in every race.
Peter Baldwin showed great consistency throughout the fourteen races, winning nine of them and only finishing out of the top two positions on two occasions. Derek Priestley ended the day in a clear second place with John Sharman, sailing his beautifully finished 3D printed boat coming out on top of a tie for third with Scarborough’s Gary Parkin.
As well as John’s 3D printed boat it was great to see a rather extreme design prototype boat, the brainchild of retired boat builder Guy Winder, being sailed by David Winder showing good speed and almost taking the win in race two, only snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by failing to cross the finish line, taking Peter with him and allowing Derek in for a cheeky win. It wasn’t until race nine that Derek managed another win but went on to finish the day in fine form.
The wind direction made the course rather challenging and the start line, out of necessity, was more than just a little bit biased, but all competitors got on with it in great humour which made for a very pleasant day’s racing made even better by Liz’s serving of the Weecher signature lunch of pie & peas followed by apple strudel and custard around the log burner stove.
After four of the five rounds of the series having to be postponed and re-scheduled due to bad weather and other reasons it was great to get the full series finally completed with John Tushingham taking the overall series from Derek Priestley, Peter Baldwin and Roger Crates. Who said the winters are getting warmer, not in the Northern District it appears!
Weecher results below.
Overall Series Results below, congratulations to all those hardy ND skippers that took part in the series and many thanks to those clubs and members that got involved to run the series too, your help is invaluable.