NW Senior Travellers Finale at Elton Sailing Club
by Dave Woodhead 8 Oct 2015 02:15 PDT
6 October 2015
NW Senior Travellers 2015 Finale at Elton © Dave Smith
The final round of the NW Senior Travellers took place at Elton S C on Tuesday 6th October. After a year when the series had been plagued by bad weather, resulting in reduced entries, it was a relief to be greeted with sunshine and moderate winds for this last event. This tempted 21 boats out onto the water, this was still below the norm but a considerable improvement on others in the 2015 series.
The first race was held in marginal planing conditions and Carol and Jon Haines in their Scorpion banged the right corner off the start and found a nice starboard lift to come back on and clear the fleet. They then a traffic free run for the rest of the race. The wind however started to fade a little on the last lap and three slower boats managed to keep in the wind to take the Scorpion on handicap.
First was the Solo of Dave Woodhead, 2nd the Solo of Philip Barnes and 3rd the Supernova of Tony Critchley. The day was really all about Tony and Philip, as going into the event they were very close on points for the whole series, with nobody else in a position to overtake them.
A pleasant lunch was enjoyed in the sunshine on the club lawn but worryingly the wind seemed to be fading further. Two races were held back to back in the afternoon, with reduced wind in the second race and drifting conditions by the time it came to the third race.
Dave Woodhead made a clean sweep of the day winning all three races, however the important battle was between Tony Critchley and Philip Barnes for the overall series prize. Tony ahead of Philip on the water was seen to be counting down the seconds to Philip finishing as he quickly did some mental arithmetic. In the end Tony did take victory in the afternoon races to give him overall victory in the series.
Top 5 positions on the day:
1. Dave Woodhead, Solo, Elton S C
2. Tony Critchley, Supernova, Bolton S C
3. Philip Barnes, Solo, Budworth S C
4. Carol and Jon Haines, Scorpion, Elton S C
5. Stuart Reid, Supernova, Combs S C
Fifty one boats took part in one or more of the series which consists of seven open meetings at seven different clubs in NW England. These take place on Tuesdays and sailors must be 50 years of age.
They are therefore sailed by the retired, semi retired and those who can grab a day off work. The result is very sociable and friendly racing by sailors from different neighbouring clubs who would not normally cross tacks with one another.
Top five places overall this year:
1. Tony Critchey, Supernova
2. Philip Barnes, Solo
3. Darren Nield, Solo
4. Dave Woodhead, Solo
5. Gerald Whitehead Solo
Additional prizes were awarded to:
The Grand Veteran (over 70) - Gerald Whitehead
The first two handed boat - Jerry Cahill and Ian Beebe, Merlin Rocket
The champion club - Bolton S C
Full results for the series can be found on the RYA north west region web site.
The series will run again in 2016 and any sailors in the NW who are 50 or over would be most welcome to come and join the fun. Full details will be posted in the spring of 2016 on the RYA NW regional web site. Alternatively get yourself on the mailing list by emailing the series coordinator Dave Woodhead at