International Contender Travellers Trophy – Season Review
by Nick Grace 18 Nov 2009 02:59 PST
18 December 2009
This years Boat Bits Contender Travellers Trophy Series ended with a bang at Rutland where 38 boats battled it out for the Inland Championship in winds gusting over 30 knots. After 12 events stretching from Restronguet in Cornwall to Halifax “up north” and with 77 contenders taking part in the series, Stuart Jones from Datchet Water SC emerged as the this year’s worthy winner with 299 points from his 6 best events narrowly beating Nick Grace (Castle Cove SC), this years Northern Champion, by just 7 points.
Ben Holden (Halifax), winner of the Inland Championship, Finished 3rd with Matt Aston (Datchet), the classes official report writer, and Gary Langdown (Highcliffe), last year’s National Champion close behind. Graham Scot, winner of this years 54 boat National Championship, just piping Stuart Jones on a countback, finished 21st having only competed in 4 events.
Top traveller in the Silver Fleet was Stuart Backhouse from Burton Sailing Club and winner in the Bronze fleet was Nick Eggett from Restronguet. Both Stu and Nick can look forward to promotion to the next fleet up in the forthcoming season – onwards and upwards boys!
The Class would like to thank all of the Clubs that have hosted events for the class this year for their hospitality and for the superb sailing that the class has enjoyed in such a wide range of conditions. With several opens having attendance of 30 or more the class continues to go from strength to strength. There are new faces continually joining the fleet and with the 2011 Contender Worlds being hosted here in the UK at the 2012 Olympic sailing venue this growth is expected to continue apace.
For a select few next year kicks off with 2010 Worlds in Brisbane, and with their boat already in transit, it’s just a case of ticking off the days until they fly off to sunnier climes. For the rest of us the season starts again in February at Datchet for the Winter Championship and runs through to October for our Inland Championships. Add to this a Europeans at LaRochell in August and a Nationals at Filey in September and we have another great season ahead of us. Bring it on!
For more details of the UK Contender scene visit www.sailcontender.org.uk