Contender Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club

Once upon a time, against the back drop of an idyllic church on the water front of a vast lake, there was a cross country competition, but it was a race within a race.

Heart thumping, the Gun went, the hare stretched his legs and drew out a great distance from the wise old tortoise. Crossing the line, the hare looked back and knew that victory was his. But this race could be viewed as a moral discard. Perhaps the tortoise was handing out solace to the young hare. For these two competitors there would be four races today and only three for mortals. The tortoise, who goes under many pseudonyms, Mr Bean or Stuart Jones to name a few, had a new toy. A nice new Hartley Boat. This would be his day and his alone. With the precision of a love-stricken AI machine he brought his dominance down on the hare and his cohorts, but not with his legs, but on it, in his new toy, in his element, shifty and patchy winds.

The reckoning; conditions force three, Race 1, 2 and 3 to the favour of Mr Jones' Intel I7 processor. And so, race one Tom chased and the packed followed. Race 2, Carl leads but is overhauled by Jones. Race 3, with up and coming Rob Smith the pacifier, a rising star of the Angry Brother Team, took a well-deserved second place. Viewed with a glint of Schadenfreude to those around them. Nob the hair less hare of the Nob Tag team was locked in a tour de force battle with his team mate, Tag. By end of Saturday the reckoning was, Jones was a country mile ahead, followed by the dysfunctional team.

Sunday: a little bit more wind with the left or the right of the beats being side of absolution, but not the sinkhole middle. Nob was in front of the tortoise. He rounded the windward mark in first place with Tim Holden in tow and then it all went wrong. Now, I digress, Mr Noble telephoned me before going to press to give his version of the truth which was interesting but for this report irrelevant.

Back to the story, it is well known that Nick has restricted vision, but we now know that he has also monochromatic sight. Obviously yellow and black marks appear as one. He rounded the wrong one; realized his mistake capsized and broke his tiller extension and departed for a hot shower, thus giving Tim Holden line honours followed by Tom Hooton. Meanwhile the shine had gone off Mr Jones' toy, he was just having to get used to the good old grind, pump, tack, gybe and weasel your way to the front. Welcome back Mr Jones to the brethren. He got a third. Now those northern powerhouse boys were starting to accrue real low points.

In the final race, through northern quantum entanglement, which southerners are incapable of, Tim and Tom swapped places and left Jones still stuck with his brethren yielding him another third. But the tortoise was happy. He had played the long hand and won, the boat was good and so was life.

And the hare was where?

The End.

P.S. We would all like to thank Rutland Sailing Club for putting on, as always, a superb event.

Overall Results: