Optimist Open at King George Sailing Club
by Simon Opaleye 14 Jun 07:30 PDT
12 June 2021
King George Optimist Open © Simon Opaleye
Being the new kid on the block as a new hub for optimist sailors in greater London, KGSC had its first Optimist Open this past Saturday June 12th.
With 17 participants, we had children ranging from those experienced in club opens and International IOCA events, to the new stock of junior sailors trained over the last year at KGSC with one sailor participating in her very first official optimist race. Whilst technically a regatta fleet event the plan was to allow the few main fleet sailors to join in and race as one combined fleet.
The weather was gorgeous: a warm sunny day, a far cry from the forecasted low winds from midweek but also not so strong that the novices would be intimidated. The setting for the day was four races before lunch, four after whilst utilising a trapezoid course with a windward finish. The club provided two coaches to support the back of the fleet.
Race one commenced in ten knots with Cinar Dortbas (1st Main Fleet) followed home by Toby Vincent (1st Regatta), Charlie Elliot-Smith (first KG sailor, 2nd Regatta) and Nia Byrne (3rd Regatta). Oddly enough this would also be the final finishing places some seven races later!
The remaining races before lunch had a similar theme of pressure dropping to seven knots whilst going left and then swinging back and increasing to twelve. Cinar demonstrated his consistency by taking all the wins but race two and four saw a mix-up in the results with Finn Byrne and Edward Taylor pulling through to the podium.
Post a quick lunch, the eager sailors were back out and straight into sequence. Cinar continued to lead the fleet but the minor podium places in races five and six saw some new faces with Guggi Ceccatelli and Harry Whelan pulling through. The major shift on the day was in race 7 with local sailor Matthias Opaleye showing his future talent and taking the on the water win.
With seven races and two discards a tight set of results saw a few tense parent faces!
Massive thanks to the club and multiple volunteers on the day. See you all at the next event!
Overall Results:
1st Toby Vincent
2nd Charlie Elliot-Smith
3rd Nia Byrne
1st Main Fleet - Cinar Dortbas