The quote “These are the best bacon butties on the circuit” set the positive tone for the day as 23 competing juniors arrived at Bolton sailing club for the RYA North West Junior Travellers Trophy on Saturday 23rd June. A full lake was the silver lining for the current spell of inclement weather and that coupled with a nice breeze from the North West allowed principle race officer Neil Platt to heed a request for a triangle sausage type course and set a long beat, run and two reaches all in front of the club house allowing competitive racing in full view of the amassing parents.
The first start saw an array of classes from the Topper up to a Merlin Rocket come to the line with a couple of slightly too eager boats having to be called back shortly after the gun sounded. Excellent boat handling and competitive racing could be seen throughout the whole fleet but credit has to go to Tom Robinson and Alex Pilkington for not only controlling the Merlin Rocket but for taking both line and race honours in the first race.
Shortly after the Handicap fleet’s starts, two young local Optimist sailors enacted their own Americas cup battle in impressive fashion, finally resulting in James Shevelan-Hobbs taking overall victory from the younger Lewis Shevelan.
Ashore, advice for all the competitors was aplenty with some incredible races being sailed and won in the heads of the growing spectator contingent holding good the adage that “all the best sailor are in the club house”. No more so than for Rhea Burton who was encouraged by all to “be more aggressive on the start line” and promptly raced her Streaker across the next start at speed right on the gun prompting her dad to exclaim “well that’s a lot better than I can manage!”
Despite the OOD choosing to keep an unchanged course for race 2, having taken a consensus of opinion from the competitors, a few chose to take matters into their own hands. Tom and Alex proceeded to hit the first two marks and thus introduce a few pirouettes into their course before Alex McLoughlin took it upon herself to take mark 1 back down the lake much to the surprise of the rescue crews and fellow racers. Once again, in the now increasing breeze, the standard of racing was a credit to all the juniors. A win for Pete Mitchell with Sam Hall close behind both in Laser Radials threw the event wide open and all eyes were on the final race.
The building breeze plus the exertions of the previous races started to take its toll on the numbers of starters, however there was little let up in the quality of the competition. Once again the Merlin attempted to establish a large enough lead over the pursuing Lasers while a very competitive battle in the Toppers occurred close behind. Line honours once more went to Tom and Alex but it was the battle of the Toppers that proved decisive with Chris Wheeler coming out on top thus taking the very important win in the last race.
Overall victory went to Pete Mitchell of Nantwich and Border SC in his Laser but it was a three-way tie for second, settled on count back that demonstrated the closeness of the racing. The result came out in favour of the Topper of Chris Wheeler from Leigh and Lowton SC who held second from Tom and Alex of Bolton SC in the Merlin finishing third while the Laser of Sam Hall was fourth. A very successful event was rounded off with each sailor receiving a photograph of themselves in action as a memento of his or her day.
