Report by Mark Platt
This year the club entered two teams for the Junior 12 Hour Race at Southport SC. The teams were intent on improving on last year’s results of 14th and 19th positions. The ‘A’ team consisted of Alex & Leanne Pilkington, Tom Robinson, Nathan Waring, Ruth Shevelan and Rebecca Paul. The ‘B’ team was made up of Hayley, Keeley & Stuart Green, Oliver Ivins, Rhea Burton, Rachael Moodie and Suzanne Robinson.
The weather for the day was not good with prolonged rain and 10 – 15 knots of wind gusting up to 20 knots from the SE. 20 teams comprising enterprises, GP14s and Bosuns started in flights one minute apart with the enterprises going a minute before the GP14s followed by the bosuns. The instructions to both starting pairs were for a safe start with no penalties. Tom & Alex followed these instructs to the letter crossing the line 37 seconds after the starting signal with Oliver and Suzanne in hot pursuit.
The teams from Winsford in a GP14, West Lancs in an enterprise and Budworth in a GP14 were soon setting the pace and it was clear that these older, bigger and more experienced sailors would be difficult to beat. After the first few crew changes the teams settled down with the ‘A’ team in 8th and the ‘B’ team in 17th. At noon the first short duration race took place and with it the first success as Tom & Alex won the fastest laps after mid-day.
During the afternoon the ‘A’ team took seventh place from Dovestones SC and the ‘B’ team were locked in a duel with Sedburgh School for 16th place. In the gusty conditions the GP14 teams had to be careful when and where they flew their spinnakers to avoid capsizing.
Ruth in the ‘A’ team and Rhea in the ‘B’ team took part in the ‘Girls’ races at 16.00, but conditions were against them and both missed out on top honours. By this time the ‘A’ team had closed to within three minutes of Southport SC who were in sixth place. A bad capsize in a sudden squall seemed to have lost all chances of sixth place and seventh place looked a safe bet barring any more incidents.
At 18.00 Stuart Green in the ‘B’ team entered the under 14 race and did two laps. His first was not the best as he got to grips with the conditions, but as he settled down he put in a blistering second lap. Unfortunately it was the first lap that counted for the race; at only 11 Stuart has another two attempts at this race.
As the race entered the last couple of hours Tom and Alex went out for their last stint and made good inroads into Southport’s lead cutting it down to 3 minutes, but with less than an hour to go the final crew change was made as Ruth and Rebecca went out. As the final lap started the wind dropped to 5 – 6 knots and the ‘A’ team was still 2½ minutes behind Southport’s enterprise on the water. They had to be less than a minute behind to beat them as the enterprise had started a minute earlier. The 37 seconds lost at the start suddenly seemed very important. As the boats re-appeared from behind the island Ruth and Rebecca were right on Southport’s transom and crossed the line just 22 seconds behind, taking sixth place.
Last year Bolton ‘A’ finished in 14th position with an average lap time 13% more than the winning boat. This year they finished sixth with an average lap time less than 5% more than the winning boat which is a huge improvement.
The ‘B’ team finished in 16th position an improvement of 3 places which is a good performance for such a young team comprising three debutants to the race.
GP14 Youth National Championships
The GP14 Youth National Championships takes place at Midland SC on 27th & 28th October if you would like more information look on the GP14 website or contact the GP14 Class Captain Andy Bury.
