|
International Tempest Association of Great Britain |
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Big and bigger - Tempest/Soling Open`07 |
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May5/6
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THE first big open meeting |
|
of the season was held at Ullswater Yacht Club
on Saturday |
|
and Sunday, May 5 and 6. And the boats were
certainly big…it was a |
|
joint event for two of the big boys of the
racing world –
the 21-foot |
|
long Tempest keelboat |
|
and the 25-foot long three-man Olympic class
the Soling. |
| |
|
The Tempest is a class boat at Ullswater and a
total of
11 |
|
entered the event including two visitors. For
the Solings, it was |
| a towing weekend for all eight
entries with the
majority coming from |
| Blackpool and Fleetwood YC. |
| |
| The entries included the 2006
national champions for both classes – |
| Jonathan Modral and Colin
Meadows of Datchet Water Sailing Club |
| for the Tempest and the
Blackpool and Fleetwood team of Soling |
| sailors Michael Preston, Brian
Bottomley and Ron Preston.
And the |
| national champions showed why
they are the top of their class by |
| both winning the six-race
event with a total of four first places in
a |
| range of different conditions. |
| |
| Saturday brought light
shifting winds and bright sunshine. Four races |
| were scheduled but in the
light conditions only three were completed. |
| In the Tempests, the Modral/Meadows
team were the overnight |
| leaders with two firsts and a
second. Lying second was the Ullswater |
| Yacht Club team of Jonathan’s
father Ian Modral, crewed by Robin |
| Higgens who were the winners
of the first race of the event. Soling |
| national champions Michael
Preston and his team also managed to |
| master the tricky conditions
by taking two first places and a second, |
| also putting them first
overnight. |
| |
| After a blustery night, the
conditions could hardly have been different |
| on Sunday
– a strong, gusty
south westerly. Modral/Meadows |
| continued their winning ways
by coming first in race four with
Modral/ |
| Higgens second. But as the
event continued, the demanding |
| conditions started to take
their toll on some of the Tempests who |
| decided it was wiser to call
it a day. Ullswater sailor John
Robinson, |
| crewed by Chris Angell got a
great start in race five and gained
the |
| lead on the first beat. After
close battle they took the top spot with |
| event leader Jonathan Modral
coming in second. As the strong winds |
| continued, just seven Tempests
were left to compete in the final race |
| of the day which was won by
Jonathan Modral. |
| |
| In the Solings, the overnight
winners of Preston/Bottomley /Preston, |
| won the first two windy races
on Sunday to clinch the event and did |
| not even have to compete in
race six. |
| |
| Race officer David Sykes and
his team, as well as the safety boat crews |
| did an excellent job to make a
success of the combined event of the |
| big boys’. |
| |
| Final results: |
| Tempest |
| 1/ Jonathan Modral and
Colin Meadows, Datchet Water SC, 4 points |
| 2/
Ian
Modral and Robin Higgens, Ullswater YC, 7 points |
|
3/
John Robinson and Chris Angell, Ullswater YC, 9 points |
| Soling |
| |
| 1/ Michael
Preston, Brian Bottomley and Ron Preston, Blackpool
and |
|
Fleetwood YC, 4 points |
| 2/ Ken Bailey,
Peter Hewitson and Adam Fox, 10 points |
| 3/ Derek
Priestley, Gary Adams and Neil Wharton, Blackpool and |
|
Fleetwood YC, 10
points |
