Cadets at the Waldringfield Easter Egg

Cadets at the Waldringfield Easter Egg © Cathy Hughes

Cadets at the Waldringfield Easter Egg © Cathy Hughes

A keen, dedicated fleet of Cadet sailors braved a less than great forecast to compete at Waldringfield's traditional season opener. The forecast called for very little wind on Easter Sunday, rather a lot on Easter Monday, plenty of rain throughout, strong tides and lots of adult fleets of bigger boats to get tangled up with at the mark roundings. What's not to like? And then again there was the prospect of endless supplies of Easter eggs as prizes so something worth getting cold for after all.

Sunday saw 2 races back to back before the wind switched off and someone pulled the plug out down near Felixstowe Ferry. It was a day to keep the boat moving at all costs with gentle, ever so gentle manoeuvres and lots of attention to cheating the tide on the long downwind legs.

Angus Collingridge and Ed Fletcher scored two firsts with commendable consistency whilst the rest of the fleet generally scored one banker and one not so good. Kate White and Rhona Enkel pushed them hard in the first race to score a second but followed that with a race to forget, whilst Anna Wootten and Imogen Mayhew did the reverse getting the less good result out the way early before hitting back with a second.

On to Easter Monday and a lot more breeze forecast to keep the sailors warmer as hiking was likely to be the order of the day. The clue to the cold and rain came from the race officer who wasn't born yesterday and bought into play some Club Line starts for races 1 and 2 which he could administer from the relative warmth of the crows nest race office. Race 3 of the weekend saw Lucie Nunn and Loulou Mayhew get off the line like a butchers dog and extend away from the chasing pack to take the win after some great covering up the final leg. With Kate White second and Angus Collingridge third the points were starting to tighten up if sufficient races would be completed (5) for the discard to come into play. Race 4 saw things tighten further Kate and Rhona took the win from Angus and Ed with siblings Lia Fletcher and Mish Collingridge in 3rd. Quick break for lunch, a bit of maths homework required to establish the ask and all set for the final race. Kate needed to beat Angus and to win the race to take the event and led him up the first leg but a couple of shifts saw him and Ed take the lead and hold on for the race. That left Kate and Rhona second overall and Lucie and Loulou in third.

Prize giving followed. All the Cadets scored huge chocolate eggs - many of them also nicking the parents prizes too. Overall a good tight season warm up with plenty of tactics, boat speed and teamwork being worked on.

Overall Results:

Cadets at the Waldringfield Easter Egg - photo © Cathy Hughes