Challenger Welsh Open Championships at Llyn Brenig Sailing Club

The Welsh Open Challenger Championships were held at Llyn Brenig Sailing Club on the 20-21 July. Seven Challengers sailors (three from England, four from Scotland, none from Wales) arrived at the club on Friday to find the water level 2m lower than normal (Welsh Water are working on the outlet valve). Fortunately the slipway was still long enough to launch the Challengers.

Saturday morning initially looked to be a bit breezy ("If the trees were moving like this at Rutland I wouldn't be going out") but the wind was actually typical for Llyn Brenig: variable in both direction (south westerlyish with an emphasis on the "ish") and strength (predominantly F1-4 with some gusts of F5). The race officer set a trapezoidal course for the day.

Race 1 established the pattern for the event: Val Millward (312) stamped her authority over the fleet although she was chased and harried by Graham Hall (270). Duncan Greenhalgh (295) soon learnt he needed to keep a close eye on Diana Faulks (288) to see what she was up to (the answer was usually sitting there waiting to pounce!).

Race 2 was characterised by a very heavy rain shower and the strongest wind of the day with Val recording 12.1 knots boat speed on the first reach. Again it was a Val-Graham one-two but Diana took third from Duncan.

The rather damp fleet returned to shore for lunch (and for several a change from spray tops to drysuits!).

In Race 3 Graham managed to lead from the windward mark and thought his luck was changing but in typical Llyn Brenig fashion on the last reach of lap two the wind shifted and dropped: he went left and Val went right where she found a lift and more pressure. At the end of lap one Stephen Thomas Bate (238) was see drifting back on to the pin. It transpired he had luffed Ronnie Cameron (240) to stop him going through the gate but had luffed too far! Ronnie put in an extra couple of tacks to overtake Stephen and hold his position to the finish. A tactical slip by Diana was exploited by Alex Hodge (116) who recorded his best result of fourth.

Ronnie made an excellent start to Race 4 and was third around the windward mark. He claimed to achieve this by keeping well away from both Val and Graham! Graham was rather nonplussed as he had hoped Ronnie would starboard Val and give him a helping hand. As Ronnie would never do anything so ungentlemanly, Val took another win! The wind around the windward mark was particularly fickle and some sailors decided to approach it by sailing very close to the shore... too close in Duncan's case as a quick tack was required accompanied by some nasty crunching sounds! His error allowed Diana to score her second third.

After four races the discard had kicked in leaving Diana and Duncan (the two Ds!) equal on points and equal on countback so Diana was third by virtue of her third place in the final race of the day.

On Saturday evening the fleet convened at a local pub for a very satisfactory meal which was accompanied by much discussion of the day's events.

Challenger Welsh Open Championships at Llyn Brenig - photo © Marion Edwards

By Sunday morning the wind had shifted to the south but it continued to fluctuate wildly in both strength and direction. During the day Val and Graham both recorded 12.2 knots boat speed. The course was changed to one that could be described as an "inverted B" - fortunately there was a lead boat! The change in course did nothing to improve Graham's fortunes and in Race 5 Val recorded another win and hence took the event. The two Ds were playing cat and mouse with each other and finished less than 10 seconds apart (with Duncan gaining the upper hand).

Race 6 saw the two Ds fighting over third place. Duncan drew on his years of experience to keep Diana firmly behind him and they crossed the line in third and fourth respectively. Alex was forced to retire with rudder problems which was an unfortunate end to his event.

So it was a emphatic win for Val with Graham in a comfortable second place. Duncan took third (with Diana snapping at his sponsons!). Val was awarded the beautiful wooden urn made over twenty years ago by the late John Vinnicombe (a former member of the club). John also used to make miniature wooden urns as keepers and this task has now been taken over by Paul Oliver. The top three (and the visiting shore crew) were presented with second generation miniature wooden urns which are a lovely memento of the event.

All in all this was a very enjoyable weekend. Thanks are due to race officer and event organiser Peter Davies, the volunteers at Llyn Brenig Sailing Club and especially to Paul Oliver for the urns.

Overall Results:

Challenger Welsh Open Championships - the first (left) and second (right) generation miniature Llyn Brenig urns - photo © Marion Edwards