Lapwing Championship at Aldeburgh Yacht Club

Lapwing Championship 2019 at Aldeburgh © Lucy Viten Mattich

Lapwing Championship 2019 at Aldeburgh © Lucy Viten Mattich

The Lapwing Championship was a weekend of challenging winds, strong tides and excellent competitive sailing.

Twelve boats entered the series, split evenly between the Gold and the Silver Fleets: a new intiative begun by our new Lapwing Class Captain to encourage those with less experience of racing to take to the water. Having a seperate start time and a shorter race for the Silver Fleet worked well, especially so given the conditions. It was felt by all competitors that the Silver Fleet was an excellent innovation and was also heartening to see more youngsters racing in the Championships this year.

The courses on both days were back to back, and long as well as challenging, particularly for those that had to temporarily haul their Lapwings ashore between races to empty out the river-water!

It was tough work tacking up-tide and up-wind in the two Saturday afternoon races. Tacking home from Chapmans through the moorings with all those squalls coming through felt somewhat dicey, to say the least! Sunday morning found the wind still blowing out of the North and with the wind against a flood tide the river between the South Line start and Halfway became very 'lumpy'.

But no boat sank or capsized and the Gold Fleet were still neck and neck as they tacked back past the club and upriver to Chapmans, despite a massive wind shift down by Halfway that nearly sunk Duncan and Scott Matthew in Skua 47. Not that that slowed them down for long! They went on to win the race and Skua finished the weekend overall winner of the Margaret Tudor Bowl.

The Silver feet was won by Kit Mattich in Seaswift, very well done too.

All in all it was a weekend of keen sailing and plenty of Lapwing camaraderie. Our thanks go to Duncan for organizing it all.

Overall Results: