The last meeting of the season followed the gales of Friday with gental breezes and clear skies. Twenty two boats got away cleanly with the fleet splitting up on wind shifts with six boats clear led by Steve Horley, Dave Everett and Mike Gibson. Gibson drew clear on lap two eventually followed by Everett with Chris Horley passing Neil Boneham and brother Steve. Mark Giles joined the leading group in sixth all well ahead of the rest of the fleet. Race two was handicapped with starts at thirty second intervals based on the first race and personal reputation for a one hour race. In a very light breeze Adrian Hollier carved through the fleet from twentieth start to win with Alan Birch holding second place from third start. Giles third from fifteenth start, Barry Buckingham fourth from start two, Chris Hawley fifth from start eighteen and Walter Smillie sixth from start ten. New fifteen second handicaps featured for race three. From start twenty Hollier again went through the fleet to win. Martin Gibson went from start eight to second and Giles from start seventeen to third. Mike Gibson advanced fifteen places to fourth. Andy Flitcroft from fourteenth to fifth and Sam Hood progressed from tenth to sixth place on the dying breeze. A meeting of an unusual format agreed by all to be highly successful and interesting. Three prizes were awarded for each race but with nobody winning more than one prize. The winner of the Travellers trophy for the season was Andy Flitcroft, the overall results for the personal handicap were unfortunately unavailable. Mark Giles Photo: Lance Tomlinson
|
