Roger Battersby Remembered

Roger Race, a tribute to the life of Roger Battersby, will be held on Sunday 5th November at Sutton Bingham Sailing Club © SBSC

On Sunday 5 November Sutton Bingham Sailing Club are hosting Roger Race, a tribute to the life of Roger Battersby, a long time member of the club who sadly passed away suddenly back in August.

The race is an open handicap event starting at 11.30am with entry by donation to the RNLI. The annual RNLI pursuit race will follow in the afternoon to which visitors are also most welcome. We hope that many sailors that knew and raced against Roger will join us for the day in his memory. Members of his family will be present award a new trophy for the event.

Many will know Roger as an active participant on the open meeting circuit in several dinghy classes. Roger started sailing in his teens in Sale in a Graduate named the Polite Force with his sister. His passion was evident at that time but never diminished, loving the fast close racing that dinghies provided.

During the late '70's and early '80's Roger had moved to South Wales and sailed an Enterprise and a Contender but was better known in the Osprey fleet.

Sutton Bingham first met Roger after he contacted Pete Barnstable to arrange a trial in his Phantom at our club. Once tried he was bitten by the bug and soon bought one, moved from Wimbleball, his former club and started winning races at Sutton Bingham. He sailed his first nationals at Saundersfoot in 2003. He had several top ten race results in various nationals, despite being a lightweight member of the class, showing the 'lardies' a good turn of speed even when the wind came up. He was a regular on the South-Western series and also a member of the class committee for a while.

Roger's name is inscribed several times on the Sutton Bingham Club Championship trophy and he was always a contender in the opens there.

He moved on from the Phantom to a Scorpion and a Solo for a while, travelling to regional opens and then took the plunge with a D-One in more ways than one!

More recently when the 505 worlds came to Weymouth he bought a 505 and although it was originally his intention to race in the "classic" fleet, his competitive nature got the better of him and he bought a Kyrwood five-O with the monster kite and raced with the big boys.

After this diversion he returned to the Phantom. He had just finished setting up the boat and was looking forward to the challenge of the open circuit again before his untimely passing.

We hope Rogers Race will be well supported and a success in raising funds for the RNLI.

Club details can be found at www.suttonbinghamsc.net