Scarborough Yacht Club New Year's Race 2020
by Chris Clark 7 Jan 2020 22:37 PST
5 January 2020
Two minutes after crossing the start line in the Scarborough YC New Year's Race 2020 © Chris Clark
With Christmas and New Year fading, 21 well crewed yachts crossed the line in the first race of the year at 11:00am on 5th January.
Being an SYC Combined Class type race with a single start, all vessels moved off together, leading to a very crowded start line and nimble navigating to avoid a bump. It really is necessary to have all crew eyes looking out in every direction, and to be aware of the sailing 'rules of the road' to avoid collisions. The first photo shows the yachts starting to spread out a few seconds into the race.
As with December, the shortness of the light and tide meant a short distance course, course L, was selected, and craft had to complete two laps. Racers had a good breeze running up to 20 knots, the spreading out tendency did not lead to large gaps between vessels, and the majority of yachts got round in between 42 to 49 minutes.
One vessel in particular, the newly acquired training Hunter 707 'Miss Moneypenny' with two inexperienced crew, Haydn Willshire and Chris Salisbury onboard, working their Day Skipper Sailing course (as am I), reached the commendable position of finishing 8th. Haydn commented: 'Really enjoyed it and learnt lots. Brilliant that we came 8th out of 20 boats.'
The race was won in style by Bee Sharp, and we show winning crewmember Henry Turner shown picking up the day's Winners Pennant.
Overall Results: (top three, SYC)
1. Bee Sharp, a Sonata owned by Jimmy and David Cliff
2. Revenge, a Sigma 33 owned by Alan Smith
3. Vision, an SJ320 owned by Jon Livesey