South West District IOM 4 Interclub Event 4th July 2026 – Report

Lucky Welshman takes the win!

The 4th meeting in the South West IOM series was held at Yeovil & District Model Boat Club on Saturday 4th July at the picturesque West Lake at Sutton Bingham Reservoir. This is an open field venue and we were blessed with a sparkling sunny, warm day with a light, variable, thermal influenced, summer A rig breeze.

Racing for the 22 competitors from 9 different clubs across the SW was held in 2 heats with HMS scoring. A simple windward/leeward course was used and while at times a course change was considered, only minor tweaks were necessary and the course orientation held surprisingly well throughout the day.

The 2 seeding races were won by Y&DMBC members Ian Jay and Andy Roxburgh both sailing their home printed 3D Alioths and taking full advantage of their local knowledge of lake and its shifty conditions. It was clearly going to be difficult to be consistent with a wind that was randomly varying in direction and pressure as the pattern of results began to show.

Race 2 was won by Bob Conner sailing his Proteus, race 3 by Mike Cooke with his 3D printed R11 design, race 4 by Colin Newton with a V12 and races 5 and 6 won again by Mike Cooke. Occasional but necessary cooling off breaks were organised for both competitors and race team and also a lunch break where any shade was favourite.

At this point Mike Cooke was looking strong but subsequently 3 lower results proved costly. Nick Martin having acquired a trusty replacement BritPOP! won race 7 while Ian Jay won his second race of the day by a comfortable margin in race 8. Colin Newton showed the way winning race 9 which left all to play for in the last race 10.

Mike Cooke initially led the last race A heat for a while which then became a 3-way battle between Mike, Peter Wiles and Nick. In the end, by catching a lucky shift and a bit of pressure on the port side of the course

Nick Martin took the win which gave him the event and the flagon of cider. The closeness of the overall results is shown on the results sheet below.

Rarely do we enjoy such a pleasant days sailing whatever the result!

Yeovil SWD4 IOM results